Live: Israel delays release of 602 Palestinian prisoners
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Over 590,000 children in Gaza are set to receive polio vaccinations, as Save the Children says "tens of thousands of children have missed routine immunizations" due to Israel's war.
However, Ahmad Alhendawi, the global charity's Middle East regional director, said that this "crucial step" is still "not enough" as thousands of children have missed out on essential vaccines, are malnourished and living in dire conditions.
Within 24 hours of US President Donald Trump meeting Jordan’s King Abdullah II, the White House released a recorded video of Trump praising the king after a humiliating exchange in front of the media.
During their meeting, Trump pushed the king to accept his plan to displace Palestinians from Gaza into Jordan, leaving Abdullah struggling to find an appropriate response.
In the lead-up to the meeting, Trump threatened to cut aid to Jordan and Egypt should they reject his plan. Egypt has since repeated its refusal and stressed the importance of ending the war and rebuilding Gaza without displacement, while President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi reportedly postponed a visit to the White House to avoid discussing Trump’s proposal.
King Abdullah, on the other hand, seemed to signal his openness to the idea by asserting that he would do what’s best for his country - an apparent deviation from the long-standing official Jordanian position of rejecting the displacement of Palestinians from their homeland.
Read more. Opposing Trump's Nakba plan for Gaza is the only way for Jordan and Egypt to survive Opinion by Raja Abdulhaq
Israeli authorities have ordered residents of Duma, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, to clear agricultural structures and crops from their land, the Wafa news agency reported.
The head of the village council, Suleiman Dawabsheh, said the Israeli forces raided the village this morning and issued more than 25 notices to Palestinian landowners.
He added that this is the first time such orders have been issued in this manner, effectively forcing farmers to clear their fields.
A Palestinian man has been shot dead by Israeli forces while he was inspecting his home in the Shujaiya neighbourhood east of Gaza City, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is heading to Saudi Arabia, state TV reported on Thursday, and is expected to discuss Gaza developments while there.
Arab states plan to discuss a plan for the reconstruction of Gaza, possibly to counter US President Donald Trump's proposal to reconstruct the strip under US control.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog asked for forgiveness for not protecting the four captives, in a statement released after Hamas handed over the bodies to the Red Cross.
“On behalf of the State of Israel, I bow my head and ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness for not protecting you on that terrible day. Forgiveness for not bringing you home safely. May their memory be a blessing,” he wrote on X.
Agony. Pain. There are no words.
— יצחק הרצוג Isaac Herzog (@Isaac_Herzog) February 20, 2025
Our hearts — the hearts of an entire nation — lie in tatters.
On behalf of the State of Israel, I bow my head and ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness for not protecting you on that terrible day. Forgiveness for not bringing you home safely.
May…
He’s the leader of the Labour Party. He’s the prime minister of the United Kingdom. But who is Keir Starmer – and is he just a pawn in someone else’s game?
Get In: The Inside Story of Labour under Starmer is the new book by British political journalists Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund, of the Times and Sunday Times respectively.
It tells the story of how an ostensibly loyal member of Jeremy Corbyn’s cabinet became part of a “plot without precedent in Labour history” to succeed him.
Or rather, how a state servant and former human rights lawyer with no real political ideology became the frontman for the return of Blairism, while continuing to invoke Israel’s “right to defend herself” as the bodies piled up in Gaza.
Read more: 'Get In': The plot involving a pro-Israel Irishman that helped Keir Starmer to power
The Israeli military said a convoy carrying the coffins of four captives, including what Hamas reported as the bodies of the Bibas family, entered Israel from Gaza on Thursday.
"A short while ago, IDF [Israeli army] and ISA [security agency] forces brought the coffins of the four deceased hostages over the border into Israel, and they are being taken to the National Institute of Forensic Medicine to undergo an identification procedure," the military said in a statement.
A small group of people have gathered outside the National Forensic Institute in central Israel, where the bodies of the four captives are set to arrive for identification, in support of the captives and their families, Haaretz reported.
The Israeli military said it had received the bodies of the captives handed over by Hamas, through the Red Cross, in Gaza on Thursday.
“The hostages’ bodies were handed over to IDF [Israeli army] and ISA [security agency] representatives in Gaza,” a military spokesperson said.
Palestinian fighters have loaded four black coffins onto International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) vehicles in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
The ICRC set up white canvases to block some of the crowd from seeing the coffins being loaded into the vehicles, which are now getting ready to depart.
The four black coffins were displayed on the stage ahead of the handover of the captives' bodies, each with a photo of a captive, including Shiri Bibas, her two young sons Kfir and Ariel, and a fourth captive, Oded Lifshitz.
Hamas said that al-Qassam and other groups in Gaza "did everything in their power" to protect the captives, but Israel's bombing campaign on the strip "prevented the rescue" of all the captives, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.
"To the families of Bibas and Lifshitz: We would have preferred your sons to return alive, but your leaders chose to kill them along with 17,881 Palestinian children," the Hamas statement said.
The group also blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for trying to evade responsibility for the killing of the captives.
A convoy of Red Cross vehicles is now heading to a stage set up by Hamas in southern Khan Younis to receive the bodies of four Israeli captives, The Times of Israel reported, citing an Israeli defence official.
The bodies will be handed over to the Red Cross, which will bring them to Israeli soldiers in Gaza.
The Israeli military will take the bodies of the captives to the Abu Kabir forensic institute for identification.
Arab leaders will gather in Saudi Arabia on Friday to counter President Donald Trump's plan for US control of Gaza and the expulsion of its inhabitants, AFP reported diplomatic and government sources saying.
The plan stirred unity among Arab states which roundly rejected the idea, but they could still disagree over who will govern the Palestinian territory and who will pay for reconstruction.
A source close to the Saudi government told the agency that Arab leaders would discuss "a reconstruction plan counter to Trump's plan for Gaza".
