Live: Israeli forces detonate 20 homes in Jenin

Israel will release 183 prisoners on Saturday as part of the hostage exchange with Hamas, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office said on Friday. 

Of the prisoners to be released, 18 are serving life sentences, 54 are serving long sentences, and 111 are Palestinians from the Gaza Strip arrested after 7 October 2023, the organisation said. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be hosted at an informal White House dinner when he visits US President Donald Trump next week. 

Trump and Netanyahu will meet twice, Axios said in a report on Friday.

The two leaders will meet around noon on Tuesday, 4 February, and then again for an informal dinner. 

The White House said on Friday that it applauded the release of three Israeli hostages and five Thai nationals by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. 

"The White House applauds the release of eight additional hostages from Hamas captivity," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. 

"The president remains committed to the release of all remaining hostages," she added. 

Meta's popular WhatsApp chat service has accused Israeli spyware company Paragon Solutions of targeting its users, including journalists and civil society activists. 

WhatsApp sent Paragon a letter on Friday to a cease-and-desist its hacking operations.

WhatsApp said it "will continue to protect people's ability to communicate privately".

Egyptians waving Palestinian and Egyptian flags protested at the Rafah border against President Donald Trump's demand that Egypt accept Palestinian refugees. 

The rare protests were carefully choreographed ahead of time, one current and former Egyptian official told Middle East Eye.

Demonstrators waved banners with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's face. 

Trump on Thursday reiterated his demand that Egypt accept Palestinian refugees. 

While joy swept through the crowd of Palestinians that gathered to greet former detainees in the occupied West Bank, those released from Israeli-run jails recalled severe abuse and hardship.

Sameh al-Shoubaki, a 45-year-old former prisoner from the West Bank city of Qalqilya, told Middle East Eye that those like him, who had been sentenced to life in prison, were allowed no contact with the outside world.  

"To be a prisoner under a life sentence is to be living in purgatory but without dying," said Shoubaki, who was released on Thursday after serving 22 years in prison.

Before his arrest in 2003, he had been pursued by Israeli forces for months, surviving several assassination attempts. Following his arrest, he was subjected to a 94-day military investigation and another 33-day investigation in 2013.

Israeli forces demolished his family home a year after his arrest, and his brothers were also detained. He was kept in solitary confinement during his imprisonment.

Read more: 'Thank God we got out': Released Palestinians recall years in Israeli prison

Lebanon's Hezbollah expressed "its deepest condolences and congratulations on the martyrdom of Qassam Brigades Commander Mohammed Deif and a group of his senior comrades from the members of the Military Council”.

“We declare our pride in these honourable leaders who remained in the battlefield until their last moments.” the group said in a statement on Telegram.

Qassam Brigades announced on Thursday that Deif had been killed along with six other members of the group's military council.

Israeli forces stormed the home of freed Palestinian prisoner Izz al-Din Awad in the town of Idhna, west of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, Al Jazeera Arabic is reporting.

Wafa news agency is reporting that Israeli forces are evicting residents of Tulkarm camp at gunpoint, as part of an ongoing five-day siege.

Eyewitnesses told Wafa that Israeli soldiers forced families out of their homes in the neighbourhoods of al-Nadi and Shuhada.

The witnesses reported that Israeli forces ransacked their homes, and blew up several of them.

A Palestinian who returned to her wrecked home in Gaza City told Reuters that she and her children are struggling to sleep in a makeshift tent she erected on the ruins of their house.

"We are staying here, but we are afraid of rats and everything around us. There are dogs. There is no place to settle. We have children. It is difficult," Manal al-Harsh told Reuters.

"We are practically sleeping here, but we don't sleep. We are afraid someone might come upon us. We are sleeping and scared," she said.

"I want to retrieve some clothes for the children to wear. We came with nothing. Life here is expensive, and there is no money to buy anything."

Fifteen months of relentless Israeli bombardment have laid the whole city to waste.

Like many others, Harsh and her children walked over 2okm from the south to find their home reduced to rubble. She is trying to salvage what remains, picking bits of clothing from the wreckage.

"It's all torn. Nothing is good. As much as we do, as much as we retrieve, it is all stones," she said.

"Death is better," Harsh said, her voice heavy with despair.

Hundreds of Egyptians attended a protest at the Rafah border crossing against US President Donald Trump's proposal to transfer Palestinians in Gaza to Egypt and Jordan.

Footage broadcast by Al-Qahera News showed protesters waving Egyptian and Palestinian flags near the border crossing between Egypt and Gaza.

Last week, Trump floated plans to "clean out" Gaza, proposing that Jordan and Egypt accept Palestinians from the enclave.

Despite both countres flatly rejecting the proposal, Trump insisted that "we do a lot for them, and they're going to do it".

Al Jazeera Arabic is reporting, citing sources, that just 7,926 aid trucks have entered Gaza since the ceasefire came into force.

According to the sources, two-thirds of the trucks carried food supplies, with amounts of tents and medical supplies lower than required.

They added that 197 fuel trucks have entered the strip, but the supplies have not benefitted the civil defence, municipalities or electricity companies.

They further reported that no heavy machinery or equipment to remove rubble and search for bodies, nor building materials, have entered the enclave.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that 50 Palestinians in need of medical care will be let through the newly opened Rafah border crossing on Saturday. This will be the first such evacuation out of Gaza since the ceasefire came into force.

The European Union (EU) announced earlier that it had restarted its civilian border mission at the crossing between Gaza and Egypt.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty that Beirut expects Israel to withdraw from the country by February 18, according to a statement from the Lebanese presidency.

Lebanon “rejects any delay under any pretext,” Aoun said during talks with the Egyptian minister in Beirut.

The deadline was extended to February 18 after Israel kept troops in Lebanon beyond the initial withdrawal date of 26 January.

Two Palestinian children were injured in an Israeli raid on al-Mughayyir village, northeast of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Wafa news agency reported.

Citing local sources, Wafa said Israeli forces stormed the eastern part of the village and opened fire on residents, injuring two children, aged 11 and 12.

One child was shot in the abdomen, while the other was wounded in the foot. Both were taken to hospital.