Live: Israel delays release of 602 Palestinian prisoners

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stormed a Palestinian home in the Tulkarm refugee camp in the northern West Bank on Friday, following a similar act by Defence Minister Yisrael Katz just hours earlier.

The Israeli Broadcasting Authority released an image showing Netanyahu alongside Israeli occupation forces inside the home.

The photograph also reveals Israeli soldiers forcibly pinning an Israeli flag to the wall of the Palestinian residence.

First came King Abdullah of Jordan. Now British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron are slogging over to Washington to temper the passions of the man in the Oval Office.

A pattern has been set.

US President Donald Trump fires a salvo at the status quo on Palestine or Ukraine and the gatekeepers of that policy ask themselves: are Trump’s words for real? Or are these shock tactics, the opening gambit of a long period of haggling?

A Palestinian negotiator likened Trump’s tweets to guns being fired at a tribal wedding: lots of noise, some of the guests could even get injured by falling bullets, but in the long run, no serious harm done.

Is this right?

Read more: Trump is abandoning Europe. Europe should abandon its appeasement of Israel

The Israeli military acknowledged on Friday it knew the Bibas family was dead in captivity in Gaza despite previously insisting they might be alive.

Hamas said in November 2023 that Shiri Bibas, 32, and her two children, Ariel, aged four, and nine-month-old Kfir, were killed in an Israeli air strike. 

However, the Israeli military continued to demand their release alive.  

Military spokesperson Daniel Hagari on Friday confirmed the death of the two babies “no later than November 2023” following the return of their bodies by Hamas as part of the ceasefire agreement. 

During a news conference, Hagari said the Israeli military had intelligence that they were already dead but could not announce it to the public. 

Read more: Israel says it knew Bibas family was dead despite claiming they might be alive

Israeli forces detained at least five Palestinians from various parts of the occupied West Bank on Friday, Wafa news agency reported.

Among them was a shepherd, who was arrested while grazing his sheep in the northern Jordan Valley area.

Another Palestinian was detained in Hebron, after several houses were raided and ransacked by Israeli security forces.

In Jalazone refugee camp, north of Ramallah, two more Palestinians were detained.

Elsewhere in Ramallah, in the town of Surda, a former Palestinian prisoner was re-arrested by Israeli forces.

There are currently around 10,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli jails. 

A Palestinian girl, 13, has been shot and killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

The ministry confirmed that Rimas al-Amouri succumbed to her wounds after being shot in the abdomen by Israeli forces. 

She had been transferred to Jenin Governmental Hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.

It brings the number of Palestinians killed in Israel’s ongoing weeks-long offensive on Jenin to 27.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has left Saudi Arabia after participating in an informal meeting to discuss the future of Gaza with Gulf states and Jordan, the presidency said on Friday.

The meeting takes place as Arab countries attempt to put together an alternative to US President Donald Trump's plan to forcibly eject Palestinians from Gaza to Jordan and Egypt.

A Palestinian woman was killed on Friday by Israeli military gunfire in the al-Jenena neighbourhood of Rafah, in southern Gaza.

Citing local sources, Wafa news agency reported that Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinian civilians in the area, killing the woman, who was identified as Hanaa al-Ghouti.

The BBC has pulled its documentary about children in Gaza from iPlayer after mounting pressure over a featured child being the son of a Palestinian minister, in a move some commentators have slammed as "cowardly".

Outrage over Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone reached its highest point on Wednesday and Thursday, with the Israeli ambassador in London complaining to Britain's public broadcaster, and culture secretary Lisa Nandy saying she will "be discussing" the issue with the BBC. 

Most criticism has focused on the fact, first reported by researcher David Collier, that the documentary's 13-year-old narrator Abdullah Alyazouri is the son of a minister in Gaza's Hamas-run government.

Middle East Eye found on Thursday that Dr Ayman Alyazouri, Gaza's deputy agriculture minister, appears to be a technocrat with a scientific background who previously worked for the United Arab Emirates government and studied at British universities.

This had not been reported elsewhere in the media.

The BBC said on Friday: "Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone features important stories we think should be told, those of the experiences of children in Gaza.

Read more: BBC slammed for pulling film that 'humanised Palestinian children'

Israel will release 602 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for six Israeli captives, who are set to return to Israel, according to the Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.

Hamas said the list includes 50 prisoners serving life sentences, 60 serving long-term sentences and 47 prisoners who were re-arrested after being released in the 2011 exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, in addition to 445 detainees arrested in Gaza during the war.

Earlier, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it had received a list of six captives who will be released on Saturday by Hamas.

Hamas has named the six Israeli captives as Eliya Cohen, Tal Shoham, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert, Hisham al-Sayed and Avera Mengistu.

The director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has pleaded not guilty to breaking police restrictions imposed on a pro-Palestinian protest in January.

Ben Jamal appeared before Westminster Magistrates Court on Friday after the police charged him with breaking the Public Order Act. Jamal pleaded not guilty to three charges against him. 

The activist is one of 77 pro-Palestine protesters arrested by the police last month after the police issued restrictions that banned demonstrators from gathering outside the BBC in central London.

The restrictions at the time shocked organisers, who said they submitted plans for the protest route months in advance in November 2024.

Read more: Palestine Solidarity Campaign head Ben Jamal pleads not guilty after London arrest

Hamas said it is looking into Israeli claims that the unidentified body it released does not belong to the captive but rather to a Palestinian woman “with complete seriousness”.

“We also point out the possibility of an error or overlap regarding the bodies, which may have resulted from the occupation targeting and bombing the place where the family was with other Palestinians,” the group said in a statement published on Telegram.

Hamas said it would inform mediators of the results of the investigation and also called for the return of the body that Israel claims belonged to a Palestinian woman.

The group added it “will announce the results transparently” and said it has no interest in “keeping any bodies” of the captives.

Lebanon's Hezbollah will bury its former leader Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday, nearly five months after he was killed in an Israeli air strike, in a mass funeral aimed at showing political strength after the group emerged badly weakened from last year's war.

Nasrallah was killed on 27 September 2024 in an Israeli air strike as he met commanders in a bunker in Beirut's southern suburbs, a stunning blow in the early phase of an Israeli offensive that has left the Iran-backed group a shadow of its former self.

Revered by Hezbollah supporters, Nasrallah led the Shia Muslim group through decades of conflict with Israel, overseeing its transformation into a military force with regional sway and becoming one of the most prominent Arab figures in generations.

Reuters

Amnesty International has criticised the European Union for hosting Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar in Brussels for the EU-Israel Association Council on 2 February.

It says the move is the first in the EU’s history "that its leaders will welcome the foreign representative of a state whose prime minister and former defense minister are subject to arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity and whose military is actively engaged in committing crimes under international law, including genocide".

Director at Amnesty International European Institutions Office, Eve Geddie, said: “It is unconscionable that the EU is rolling out the red carpet for foreign minister Sa’ar whose boss, Prime Minister Netanyahu, is wanted by the ICC."

She added: "Discussions on the EU’s future relationship with Israel should above all be premised on an insistence that Netanyahu and Gallant face justice at the ICC for the crimes they are alleged to have committed, as well as on Israel’s adherence to international law and an end to apartheid.

"EU leaders must put their commitments to international law, human rights and the ICC above carefully choreographed diplomatic conferences with Israel."

The Red Cross is concerned about the operations through which Hamas hands over the Israeli captives, stating that it had not been conducted in a private and dignified manner, Reuters news agency said.

“The ICRC does not participate in sorting, screening, or examining the deceased - this is the responsibility of the parties to the conflict,”it said in a statement on Friday.

It told Reuters that it is "concerned and unsatisfied" by the way Hamas hostage release operations have taken place.

The remarks come after Israel had said that one of the released bodies does not belong to the captives held in Gaza.

Gaza needs at least 60,000 mobile homes and 200,000 tents to shelter displaced Palestinians, the Strip's government media office said, adding that the aid received so far only suffices half the number of tents required.

It added that Israel tends to slow down the progress of the implementation of the ceasefire deal.

“The occupation's behavior is still characterized by procrastination and reluctance, and it seeks to evade its pledges in the humanitarian aspect of the agreement. We call on the international community and mediators to put pressure to provide the Gaza Strip’s urgent needs for shelter, relief, and health care supplies,” the media office says.  

It called for an international conference to be held to discuss the reconstruction of Gaza, and pointed out that it had recorded 350 Israeli violations of the ceasefire agreement since it took effect on 19 January.