Live: Israel delays release of 602 Palestinian prisoners

Rafah Mayor Ahmed al-Sufi condemned Israel’s destruction of the southern Gaza city, stating that occupation forces had levelled six entire neighbourhoods and were blocking residents from returning home.

According to Sufi, 70 percent of Rafah has been destroyed, with 90 percent of its buildings rendered uninhabitable.

Israeli media has released a video showing Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan hospital and a paediatrician, in captivity, shackled at both hands and feet, appearing visibly exhausted.

The family of Abu Safiya has accused Israeli forces of subjecting him to “severe mistreatment and torture” following his arrest on 27 December 2024.

According to his family, Abu Safiya was held in solitary confinement for more than a month. There was a visit to Abu Safiya at Israel’s Ofer prison, following which it was reported that his health remains stable but that he suffers from chronic high blood pressure and an enlarged heart muscle.

He is receiving treatment but is only given one "inadequate" meal per day. “Regarding his legal case, it is clean, and there are no charges against him,” his family said in a post on X.

Israeli forces have barred thousands of displaced Palestinians from returning to their homes in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinians gathered at the camp’s entrance after reports that the Palestinian Civil Affairs Authority had called for their return. However, Israeli soldiers blocked them from entering and forcibly dispersed them.

“We came here to see what happened to our camp, but the Israeli army prevented us and chased us away,” Palestinian resident Basma Masharqa told the Anadolu news agency.

"We know our home has been demolished. I want to return despite my heartbreak, just to see even the ruins. We say to the occupation: Enough! Get out of our camp. There is nothing left that you haven’t done.”

Abu Obeida, spokesperson for the Qassam Brigades, announced that the bodies of the Bibas family and Israeli captive Oded Lifshitz would be handed over on Thursday as part of the ceasefire exchange deal.

He said that all of them had been alive before Israeli air strikes targeted their detention sites, making Israel responsible for their deaths.

A row has erupted at London's University of Westminster after two senior academics gave keynote speeches at a conference organised by an Israeli university that closely collaborated with the Israeli military in its war on Gaza.

In November 2024 Dibyesh Anand and Nitasha Kaul, professors in Politics and International Relations, addressed a conference at Tel Aviv University.

The institution is heavily involved in arms research and collaborates with Israeli arms manufacturers and the Israeli military.

It also hosts the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), a think tank close to the Israeli military establishment which has helped define the state’s military philosophy when it comes to Palestinians and neighbouring Arab states.

In particular, the INSS helped develop the notorious Dahiya doctrine, which encourages the destruction of civilian infrastructure as a supposed deterrence to groups taking up arms against Israel.

Read more: Outrage after UK academics address Israeli university closely tied to military

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the Trump administration has entirely cut off funding for the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) security forces, according to both American and Palestinian officials.

The security forces are widely unpopular amongst Palestinians for their collaboration with Israeli forces in targeting Palestinian groups resisting the occupation.

Brigadier General Anwar Rajab, spokesperson for the Palestinian security forces, told The Washington Post that the United States had been a “major donor to PA projects”, which included security initiatives and training programmes aimed at strengthening the forces.

The Israeli army reportedly expressed satisfaction with a recent operation conducted by PA forces in the Jenin refugee camp, according to the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA).

Since December, operations by the PA security forces under Israeli military oversight have involved approximately 300 armed personnel targeting resistance groups.

Israel's Central Command has recommended strengthening the PA’s security apparatus and increasing coordination.

Following this advice, the Israeli security cabinet instructed the army to bolster its collaboration with PA forces.

The PA's operations are carried out in collaboration with Israel and under its oversight.

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 Egyptshould 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 al-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. 

The king himself, along with his foreign minister and the White House press secretary, all later reiterated Jordan’s official position of rejecting any displacement plans.

Read more: Why Jordan and Egypt should work actively to thwart Trump's Gaza plan. Opinion by Raja Abdulhaq

Yehuda Cohen, father of Israeli soldier Nimrod Cohen who was captured on 7 October, has reported that he has received a message from his son through one of the recently freed captives.

According to Cohen, Nimrod passed the following message: "I am ok, don't worry."

Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun on Wednesday told visiting US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz that Israel must withdraw entirely from the country and complete the implementation of the US-brokered ceasefire agreement with Israel.

Israeli troops withdrew on Tuesday from most of south Lebanon but Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Israel would temporarily remain in five points needed for its security.

The Lebanese presidency said that Lebanon would consider any remaining Israeli presence on Lebanese land an occupation.

Israel had been due to withdraw by 26 January, but this was extended to 18 February.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has said it will relaunch its vaccination programme on Saturday, aiming to reach around 600,000 children across Gaza.

The agency said that although no polio cases had been reported in the territory since August, the virus has been detected in wastewater samples taken in December and January.

“The current environment in Gaza, including overcrowding in shelters and severely damaged water, sanitation and hygiene infrastructure, which facilitates faecal-oral transmission, create ideal conditions for further spread of poliovirus,” WHO said in a statement.

“Extensive population movement consequent to the current ceasefire is likely to exacerbate the spread of poliovirus infection,” it added.

We reported earlier that an Israeli strike targeting a vehicle in the southern Lebanese village of Aita al-Shaab killed one person and injured another.

Al Jazeera's fact-checking agency Sanad has identifed the victim as the son of the town's mayor, Yusuf Mohammed Sorour. He was struck by a drone strike as he was sitting in the car in front of his home.

The Mujahideen Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement, has confirmed that the bodies of the captives from the Bibas family will be handed over on Thursday.

Yarden Bibas, 35, was released on 1 February, but the group's spokesperson Abu Bilal said in a statement that his wife Shiri, 33 and their children Ariel, five, and Kfir, two, had been killed in an Israeli air strike. He added that their bodies had been "preserved".

80 percent of Gaza's water and sanitation infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed amid Israel's war on Gaza, according to Oxfam.

The NGO said that all six key wastewater treatment plants in the Strip have been damaged, promoting the spread of water-borne diseases.

Egypt's president called on the international community on Wednesday to adopt a plan to rebuild war-torn Gaza without displacing Palestinians, after a proposal by US President Donald Trump to '"take over" the Gaza Strip and forcefully move the population to Jordan and Egypt. 

"We stressed the importance of the international community adopting a plan to reconstruct the Gaza Strip without displacing Palestinians. I repeat, without displacing Palestinians from their lands," President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi told a press conference with Spain's prime minister in Madrid.

Israeli forces have detained at least 30 Palestinians, including children and former prisoners, across the occupied West Bank since Tuesday evening, according to the Palestinian Prisoners' Society (PPS) and the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.

The groups said in a statement that the number of detentions in Jenin and its camp since the offensive began a month ago has reached 175, while in Tulkarm and its camps, it has reached at least 150.

These figures include those who were detained and later released.