Live: Israel delays release of 602 Palestinian prisoners

Hamas has handed over three Israeli captives to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in central Gaza's Deir al-Balah, as shown on live TV.

Ohad Ben Ami and Eli Sharabi were both taken from kibbutz Be’eri during the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023, while Or Levy was taken that day from the Nova music festival.

In exchange, Israel will release 183 Palestinian prisoners, including 111 detained in Gaza during the war, according to Hamas.

Good evening Middle East Eye readers, 

Our blog will soon be closing for the day. Here are some of today's main developments:

• More than 12,000 bodies are trapped under the rubble in the Gaza Strip, the head of the enclave's Government Media Office said on Friday.

• Medical sources confirmed to Wafa news agency on Friday evening local time that seven-year-old Saddam Hussein Iyad Rajab, from the town of Kafr al-Labad, east of Tulkarm, has died from wounds inflicted by Israeli gunfire.

• The Government Media Office in Gaza has condemned the severe shortfall in humanitarian aid entering the besieged enclave, accusing Israel of deliberately restricting essential supplies in violation of agreements.

• The US State Department has authorised a $7.4bn arms sale to Israel, including $6.75bn in bombs, guidance systems, and fuzes, along with $660m in Hellfire missiles, according to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

• US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order suspending aid to South Africa, citing the country’s growing ties with Iran and its stance at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where it accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.

• Hamas’s prisoners’ media office has announced that Israel is expected to release 183 Palestinian detainees as part of a scheduled prisoner swap on Saturday.

• US President Donald Trump has said he is in no rush to move forward with his controversial Gaza plan.

• Morgan Ortagus, deputy to US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, told reporters in Beirut that Washington remains firm on Israel’s obligation to withdraw its forces from Lebanon by 18 February.

• Republican Senator Ted Cruz said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deliberately withheld details of the exploding pager attack from the Biden administration, fearing that the White House would alert Hezbollah.

• The US deputy special envoy for the Middle East on Friday said that Hezbollah's presence in Lebanon's new government was a red line, welcoming the end of the Iran-backed group's "reign of terror".

• Ireland has pledged $20m to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) after an Israeli ban came into effect.

• The UN said it deeply regretted US President Donald Trump's decision to sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC) and urged him to reverse the move.

• The EU expressed its "regret" regarding the US executive order allowing the imposition of sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC).

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order suspending aid to South Africa, citing the country’s growing ties with Iran and its stance at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where it accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.

The order claims South Africa’s foreign policy decisions, including its diplomatic and military cooperation with Iran, pose a threat to US interests, its allies, and African partners.

Among the reasons cited for the decision were South Africa's "aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies, including accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide in the International Court of Justice, and reinvigorating its relations with Iran to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements."

"The United States cannot support the government of South Africa's commission of rights violations in its country or its 'undermining United States foreign policy, which poses national security threats to our Nation, our allies, our African partners, and our interests," the order added.

An Israeli source told Haaretz that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no intention of withdrawing Israeli forces from the Egyptian-Gaza border or the so-called buffer zone along Israel’s border unless Hamas leadership is expelled from the enclave.

If Hamas remains, Netanyahu sees only two options: resuming military operations or prolonging the first stage of the ceasefire.

The source said that the Trump administration supports Israel's right to resume combat in Gaza if Hamas violates the ceasefire or if negotiations on the next phase of the deal collapse. The Biden administration has reportedly provided Israel with a document guaranteeing its ability to restart military action under these conditions

The Hashemites of Jordan are survivors. With British backing, they clawed a little desert kingdom out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire after WWI. Three decades later, they watched as their profligate cousins in Iraq were slaughtered in a coup. They were bested by Israel in the 1967 War and then clobbered Palestinian fighters a few years later.

Through it all, they stayed.

Therefore, when King Abdullah II meets US President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday, he can trumpet the fact that he is the longest-serving Arab ruler in the world, heading one of its oldest family dynasties. He wants to keep it that way.

Abdullah’s mission is clear. He will have to stand his ground to convince Trump that his impoverished, resource-poor kingdom will not accept Palestinian refugees so that the US can "take over" the Gaza Strip and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

The arrival of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees from the war-ravaged Gaza Strip into Jordan is the type of event that current and former US, European and Arab officials say would spell the death knell to Hashemite rule that he and his ancestors have so deftly avoided.

Read more: The Middle East's longest-reigning king heads into a standoff with Trump

The US State Department has authorised a $7.4bn arms sale to Israel, including $6.75bn in bombs, guidance systems, and fuzes, along with $660m in Hellfire missiles, according to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

“The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to US national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defence capability,” the agency stated.

Despite mounting international criticism over Israel’s assault on Gaza, Washington continues to provide military support to Israel, ignoring accusations that such transfers make the US complicit in the Strip's devastation.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and UN secretary general Antonio Guterres have reaffirmed their opposition to any attempt to forcibly remove Palestinians from Gaza, condemning such plans as a violation of international law.

According to the Egyptian presidency, the two leaders discussed Cairo’s efforts to uphold the ceasefire, facilitate prisoner exchanges, and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

They also emphasised the urgent need to begin reconstruction in Gaza, rejecting US or Israeli schemes aimed at expelling Palestinians instead of allowing them to rebuild their homeland.

The headlines across Saudi Arabia this week have been, by all accounts, as “firm and unwavering” as the kingdom’s official position on Gaza, rejecting outright any normalisation process with Israel without a Palestinian state in the equation.

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told reporters that Riyadh no longer has the precondition of a Palestinian state in order to open up diplomatic relations with Israel.

A short time later, Trump made the stunning announcement that the US would expel Gaza’s residents to nearby countries and then "take over" the enclave and turn it into a beach resort. 

Within minutes, at 4am local time, Saudi Arabia issued a statement rejecting the entire premise. 

“The Palestinian state is not the subject of negotiation or concessions,” read the headline in Saudi’s Al-Watan newspaper, citing the foreign ministry. 

Read more: Saudi press slams Trump bid to 'take over' Gaza

Dozens of demonstrators gathered in Beirut to denounce comments made by US deputy special envoy to the Middle East Morgan Ortagus, who criticised Hezbollah and praised Israel.

According to Lebanon’s National News Agency, protesters rallied near Beirut airport’s entrance, condemning Ortagus’s remarks following her meeting with President Joseph Aoun.

Ortagus had said Hezbollah would no longer “be able to terrorise the Lebanese people” and expressed gratitude to Israel for “defeating the group”.

Israeli security forces have been contacting and visiting the families of Palestinian prisoners due to be freed tomorrow under the ceasefire agreement, warning them against holding any celebrations, according to Israeli Army Radio.

The families of Israeli captives held in Gaza fear US President Donald Trump's plan to take control of the enclave and expel Palestinians to other countries could upend the ceasefire deal and derail any chances of their release.

Yehuda Cohen, the father of detained Israeli soldier Nimrod Cohen, told Middle East Eye that for him, and the families of other Israeli captives held in Gaza, there was a genuine concern that the president's plan could force Hamas to abandon the deal.

"Any discussion that creates controversy about the day after, let's leave that for later, because first of all, Hamas really might have fears about that and might stop the process," Cohen told MEE.

"Our terrible government... will exploit this for its narrow interests, to please [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich, and also actually once again, to prioritise an ideology that is very - let's call it racist - over its basic duty to secure the lives of Israeli civilians and soldiers."

Earlier this week, Trump, whilst speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said his administration would "take over" the enclave, relocate its inhabitants elsewhere and turn the territory into the "riviera of the Middle East."

Read more: Families of Israeli captives fear Trump's Gaza plan could derail their release

Amnesty International has denounced former US President Donald Trump’s executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court (ICC), calling it a dangerous assault on global justice.

Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary general, criticised the move and accused Washington of seeking to dismantle mechanisms that hold perpetrators of war crimes accountable.

“It is vindictive, aggressive, and a brutal step to destroy global rules that aim to deliver justice for all,” she said in a statement, warning that the sanctions undermine decades of progress in international law.
Callamard said that institutions like the ICC are essential to upholding human rights, preventing atrocities, and securing justice for victims.

“At an historic moment when we are witnessing a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and the global rule of law coming under threat from multiple fronts, institutions like the Court are needed more than ever,” she added.

Lebanon’s presidency has distanced itself from comments made by US deputy special envoy to the Middle East Morgan Ortagus, who said after a meeting with President Joseph Aoun that Hezbollah’s participation in the next government was a “red line”.

In a brief statement shared on social media, Aoun’s office dismissed Ortagus’s remarks, stating: “Some of what was said by the US deputy special envoy to the Middle East Morgan Ortagus in Baabda [the presidential palace] only represents her own viewpoints, and the presidency is not concerned with it.”

Ortagus’s visit comes as Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam struggles to form a new cabinet, which is expected to include all major political factions.

Hezbollah and its ally, the Amal Movement, hold significant sway in Lebanon’s 128-seat Parliament, making their exclusion an unrealistic demand.

The Government Media Office in Gaza has condemned the severe shortfall in humanitarian aid entering the besieged enclave, accusing Israel of deliberately restricting essential supplies in violation of agreements.

According to the office, only 8,500 aid trucks have entered Gaza, far below the 12,000 that were promised. In northern Gaza, where the humanitarian crisis is most severe, fewer than 3,000 trucks have arrived - less than half of the agreed-upon 6,000.

The statement also said that only 10 percent of the promised tents have been delivered, while not a single mobile home has been allowed in.

Fuel supplies remain critically low, with just 15 trucks entering daily, despite agreements stipulating at least 50.