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Syria
Syrian Foreign Minister Assaad al-Chaibani has received an invitation to visit Iraq, with the date to be determined following “necessary technical consultations,” Syria’s state news agency SANA reported, as cited by Reuters.
Two Iraqi sources had earlier told Reuters that Chaibani was expected to make an official visit to Baghdad on Saturday. The agency said the visit would address issues of mutual interest and seek to open a new chapter in bilateral relations following the overthrow of Assad.
Lebanon
The French Consulate in Lebanon has urged French nationals to exercise “extreme caution this Sunday due to the funeral of former Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah,” according to a message posted on X. “Avoid the airport road and strictly limit your movements,” the statement added.
Occupied West Bank
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry has condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the Tulkarem refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, denouncing it as an “assault” and an “aggression” against the territory.
In a statement, the ministry described the “raid on the refugee camp as a manifestation of Israel’s persistence, as the occupying power, not only in its aggression against the Palestinian people but also in carrying out extrajudicial executions, demolishing homes, and forcibly displacing Palestinians.”
Lebanon
Residents of the Sour area in southern Lebanon have begun a march toward Beirut’s Camille Chamoun Sports City stadium, where the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah is set to take place Sunday, our correspondent reports.
Israel
The Hostage Families Forum said it was shaken by the “barbaric” conditions of the Bibas brothers' death, according to AFP.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi left Riyadh after attending an "informal meeting regarding the Palestinian cause," according to a statement from the presidency relayed by Reuters.
The Israeli army says the two Bibas brothers were killed "by terrorists with bare hands," according to AFP.
The Bibas family said they were not "seeking revenge now" after the deaths of the two child hostages, according to a statement cited by AFP. They also accused Benjamin Netanyahu of having "abandoned" the hostages.
A Palestinian NGO said that Israel will release 602 prisoners tomorrow in the sixth exchange of prisoners for hostages held in the Gaza Strip, under the truce agreement in the Palestinian territory.
Of those released, 445 are from Gaza and were arrested after the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which sparked the war, 60 are serving long sentences, 50 life sentences and 47 were rearrested after a prisoner swap in 2011, Amani Sarahneh, spokesperson for the Palestinian Prisoners Club NGO, told AFP.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the world to condemn what he called the "horrific murders" of the two Bibas children, whose bodies were returned the day before by Hamas as part of the Gaza cease-fire deal.
"The entire civilized world should condemn these horrific murders," Netanyahu said in a statement. "Who kidnaps a little boy and a baby and murders them? Monsters ... I pledge not to relent until these savages who executed our hostages are brought to justice."
Hamas' military wing confirmed that it would hand over six hostages alive in the Gaza Strip to Israel on Saturday, as part of a cease-fire agreement brokered through mediators that came into effect on Jan. 19 after 15 months of war.
The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement that the release of the hostages would take place as planned. In Israel, the Hostage Families Forum published the names of the six hostages in question earlier this week.
A Hamas official said the body of the hostage believed to be Shiri Bibas returned to Israel the day before may have been "mistakenly mixed with others under the rubble" in the Gaza Strip.
"It is likely that Bibas' body was mistakenly mixed with others under the rubble," said the official, who declined to be named, adding that the movement was investigating the incident. The statement came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier in the morning that the body of a Gazan woman had been returned to Israel instead of that of Shiri Bibas.
Excavators and trucks carrying mobile homes have been seen entering the Gaza Strip at the Rafah crossing with Egypt, Egyptian state media reported. Construction equipment is also part of convoys entering Rafah, according to the report, cited by al-Jazeera, which said the convoys will have to pass through an "inspection zone" before being allowed to enter the enclave.
Three Israeli drones flew silently over the western and central sectors of the border area in south Lebanon, L'Orient Today's correspondent in the region reported.
The extent of the damage resulting from yesterday evening's Israeli strike on the Syrian side of an informal crossing point between Syria and Lebanon, at Wadi Khaled (Akkar), is clearly visible this morning, according to L'Orient Today's correspondent. Shrapnel hit a school called "the buds of the future," close to the railways of Wadi Khaled. One of its walls was hit by the shrapnel, and damage was noted inside.
Similarly, shrapnel and rocks, which were detached due to the force of the explosion, fell on the roof of a house near the crossing point in question on the Lebanese side. Part of the roof collapsed. No injuries were reported in either case. Some cars were damaged.
The Israeli group fighting for the release of all hostages abducted on Oct. 7 said it was "horrified" that Hamas had not returned hostage Shiri Bibas along with the bodies of her two children, AFP reported.
"We are horrified and devastated by the news that their mother, Shiri, has not been returned, despite the agreement" that Shiri Bibas' remains were to be returned on Thursday, the Hostage Families Forum said in a statement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas handed over the body of a "Gazan woman" in place of that of Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas the day before, in violation of a truce agreement between Israel and the Palestinian movement.
"With unimaginable cynicism, they did not return Shiri with her grandchildren, the little angels, and placed the body of a woman from Gaza in the coffin," Netanyahu said in a statement.
The photo of Ali Salim Azzam published by Islamic Jihad. (Obtained from the movement by L'Orient Today's correspondent Muntasser Abdallah)
Islamic Jihad announced the death of one of its fighters, Ali Salim Azzam, from the Nahr al-Bared camp in North Lebanon. Azzam was part of the armed wing of the Palestinian movement, the al-Quds Brigades, and was killed in south Lebanon "in the fighting against the Israeli offensive" in recent months, according to the statement.
According to information from L'Orient Today's correspondent in the south, his body was found in one of the villages in the south which is now accessible to residents since the withdrawal of the Israeli army.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas had committed a "cruel violation" of the cease-fire in the Gaza Strip by failing to return the remains of hostage Shiri Bibas, warning that Israel would act "with determination" to bring her home.
"We will act decisively to bring Shiri home and all our hostages – the living and the dead – and we will ensure that Hamas pays the price for this cruel and perverse violation of the agreement," Netanyahu said in a video statement quoted by AFP.
Saudi Arabia is hosting a summit of eight Arab leaders later today to discuss a plan to respond to Donald Trump's proposal to bring the Gaza Strip under U.S. control and relocate the population of the war-torn Palestinian territory.
Riyadh tried to dampen expectations by announcing a customary "informal fraternal meeting" between the leaders of the six Gulf countries, as well as those of Egypt and Jordan, specifying that its decisions will be on the agenda of the Arab summit scheduled for Egypt on March 4. The American president's vision for Gaza has attracted a rare Arab consensus, but divergences could emerge on the question of the future governance of the Palestinian territory and the financing of its reconstruction, diplomats and experts point out.
Israeli aircraft struck the Syrian-Lebanese border overnight, in northern Lebanon and the Syrian province of Homs, claiming to have targeted illegal border crossings "used by Hezbollah" to bring in weapons. According to information from L'Orient Today's correspondent in the North, Michel Hallak, the strike targeted the Israeli side of the clandestine crossing of Wadi al-Wawiyat, opposite Wadi Khaled, with several missiles.
Although there have been no casualties so far, the strikes damaged nearby houses and missile fragments hit and overturned a car that was nearby.
Israel accused Hamas this morning of killing children Ariel and Kfir Bibas while they were in captivity in Gaza, and of handing over the body of an unknown person instead of that of their mother Shiri Bibas.
"According to the assessment of the competent authorities and based on available intelligence and diagnostic indicators, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were brutally killed in captivity in November 2023 by Palestinian terrorists," Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on Telegram. The additional body was not that of their mother Shiri or that of any Israeli hostage. It is an "unidentified" body, the military spokesperson added, denouncing "a flagrant violation" of the ceasefire agreement by Hamas. "We demand that Hamas return Shiri Bibas and all those abducted," he added.
Hamas has consistently claimed that Ariel and Kfir Bibas, aged four years and eight and a half months respectively when they were abducted in Israel on October 7, 2023, were killed in Israeli airstrikes.
The fourth body was that of Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 years old on the day he was captured during Hamas' unprecedented attack on Israeli territory on Oct. 7, 2023.
In Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, armed fighters displayed four black coffins on a podium on Thursday morning, each bearing a photo of one of the hostages. Above, a poster showing Benjamin Netanyahu with his face stained with blood, flanked by vampire teeth. This staging was criticized both in Israel and internationally. While Netanyahu said that the country was "mad with rage," the UN called it "abject and cruel" and Berlin denounced "barely bearable images."
An official in the Prime Minister's Office said that Netanyahu called "the planting of explosives on buses a very serious incident and will order decisive action against terrorist elements in the West Bank."
Denouncing these attacks, Katz had immediately said that he had ordered an intensification of operations in "all" the refugee camps in the West Bank, notably that of Tulkarm.
For several weeks, the Israeli army has been carrying out almost daily operations in several towns and camps in the West Bank.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz accused "Palestinian terrorist organizations" of being behind the explosions and said he ordered the army to step up its offensives, particularly in refugee camps.
Central Israel Police Commander Haim Sargarof said in a televised briefing that the devices used to trigger the explosions were similar to those found in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
Israeli police reported explosions on three buses in Bat Yam last night. According to the mayor of the town, Tzivka Brot, there were no injuries. Two other devices were defused. Following the explosions, a large police force was deployed to search for suspects, according to the police. Footage broadcast by Israeli television stations showed one bus burned and another on fire. According to Israeli media, bus drivers across the country were asked to stop and inspect their own buses for explosive devices.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered an "intensive operation against centers of terrorism" in the West Bank overnight after a series of explosions on buses last night in Bat Yam, in the center of the country, according to his office. The leader "ordered the Israel Defense Forces to conduct an intensive operation against centers of terrorism" in the West Bank, the source told X. He also ordered the police and the Shin Bet (domestic intelligence) "to increase prevention activity" of such attacks, it was added after a meeting devoted to security.
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