Hamas will hand over at least four bodies held hostage in the Gaza Strip to Israel on Tuesday evening, an official of the group told AFP on condition of anonymity.
As part of the cease-fire agreement, "we have informed the mediators that we will hand over four to six bodies of Israeli prisoners tonight," the official said.
Another source close to the Hamas negotiating team confirmed this information.
The Red Cross is on its way to recover several bodies of hostages.
"If they don't disarm themselves, we will disarm them," U.S. President Donald Trump said of Hamas.
"It will happen quickly and perhaps violently," he told reporters at the White House, without giving further details on what form such a disarmament operation would take or how long he would give the Palestinian movement to comply.
Israeli Minister of Internal Security Itamar Ben Gvir has threatened to cut off all humanitarian aid to Gaza if Hamas does not return the remains of soldiers still held in Palestinian territory.
"I call on the Prime Minister to issue a clear ultimatum to Hamas: If you do not immediately return all the bodies of our fallen soldiers and continue to delay their return, we will immediately suspend all humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip," wrote Ben Gvir on his Telegram account.
Netanyahu: "I believe that ... we will soon receive news, hopefully in the coming hours, regarding the return of other fallen hostages," he said in a video released by his office. "We are determined to bring everyone back," he added.
Hamas security publishes video of what it claims to be collaborator executions
Hamas television broadcast a video showing what it claims to be the execution of eight men accused of collaborating with Israel in the streets of Gaza City after the Israeli army withdrew as part of the U.S.-brokered cease-fire.
The video, whose authenticity, date of filming, and location AFP is unable to immediately verify, was posted Monday evening on Al-Aqsa TV's Telegram channel with the caption: "The resistance carries out the death penalty against a number of collaborators and outlaws in Gaza City."
It shows eight men with their hands tied behind their backs and their eyes or heads blindfolded, being dragged to a square, forced to kneel, and lined up before being shot, each with a burst of gunfire from armed men standing behind them.
The main Israeli association campaigning for the release of hostages held in Gaza has revealed the identity of the fourth person whose remains were returned by Hamas the day before, stating that it was Daniel Peretz.
Trump posts update on hostage release to his Truth Social account, a mix of Caps Lock and lowercase for maximum effect.
Israel informs UN it will only allow half of the agreed humanitarian aid trucks to enter Gaza
Israel has told the United Nations that it will only allow 300 aid trucks per day, half the number initially agreed, to enter the Gaza Strip from Wednesday, and that no fuel or gas will be allowed, except for specific needs related to humanitarian infrastructure, according to a note seen by Reuters and confirmed by the U.N.
Olga Cherevko, spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Gaza, confirmed receiving the note from COGAT, the Israeli military body responsible for overseeing the delivery of aid to Gaza. COGAT announced last Friday that it expected around 600 aid trucks to enter Gaza daily during the cease-fire.
Army "grants access" to residents of Houla to harvest olives this season
The municipality of Houla announces, on the instructions of Lebanese Army intelligence, that residents will be able to access land and olive groves located east of the village and in remote areas from Friday, Oct. 17 to Tuesday, Oct. 21, to harvest olives, cut wood, plow and clean plots, under the supervision of the army and UNIFIL.
"Residents are asked to prepare the workers, equipment, and means of transport necessary to carry out this work during the specified period," the municipality added.
Gaza Civil Defense announces 6 Palestinians killed from Israeli gunfire in Gaza
On the fifth day since the signing of the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, Israeli drones "opened fire on civilians inspecting their homes in Shujaiya," a neighborhood in eastern Gaza City, killing five, Mahmoud Bassal, spokesman for the Civil Defense, told AFP.
The Israeli army, which still occupies large parts of the Strip, said the victims were "suspects" who "did not comply and continued to approach the troops, who opened fire to eliminate the threat."
Bassal also reported that a Palestinian was killed in an Israeli drone strike in Al-Foukhari, southeast of the large city of Khan Younes, in the southern Gaza Strip.
When questioned by AFP, the Israeli army gave the same explanation as for its firing in Shujaiya.
Hamas has told mediators that it will begin transferring the remains of four Israeli hostages to Israel at 10 p.m. on Tuesday, an official involved in the operation told Reuters.
Israel is blocking humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip, despite cease-fire agreement
The UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) says that Israel is blocking its humanitarian supplies from entering Gaza and has called for Israel's ban on aid to be lifted.
“UNRWA’s humanitarian supplies — food, hygiene kits, medicine, shelter items — are sitting in warehouses outside Gaza, banned from entering by the State of Israel. We have enough food for the entire population for three months waiting in Egypt and Jordan,” it said on X.
“There’s no more time to lose — we need a green light to start bringing in UNRWA’s supplies immediately so our teams can deliver them to people in need.
“The ban on UNRWA’s aid must be lifted.”
Gaza: 44 killed, 29 injured in past 24 hours, Health Ministry reports
The Gaza Health Ministry has reported that 44 Palestinians were killed and 29 injured in a series of fresh Israeli airstrikes across multiple areas of the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, according to witnesses and medical sources.
The ministry said 38 of the dead were retrieved from rubble, as bodies were rushed to hospitals across the strip.
It added that a number of victims remain trapped under debris and in the streets, with ambulance and civil defense crews unable to reach them.
The overall death toll since Israel began its war on Gaza two years ago has risen to 67,913, with 170,134 injured, according to Health Ministry figures.
Bodies of Palestinians killed by Israel returned to Gaza
"The bodies of 45 martyrs arrived at the hospital via the Red Cross after being released by [Israel] as part of the exchange agreement," the medical center said in a brief statement.
Israel announced Tuesday that it had identified the four bodies of hostages returned by Hamas on Monday as those of three Israelis and a Nepalese student kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023.
Under the exchange agreement signed by Israel and Hamas as part of the U.S.-brokered agreement, Israel must return the remains of 15 Palestinians from Gaza who died for each hostage body returned.
Previously unexploded missile explodes as civilian attempts to neutralize it
According to a security source cited by our correspondent, a missile exploded in an area between Tibnin and Haris (Bint Jbeil) after a civilian attempted to neutralize it.
The incident left one person injured and was accompanied by an Israeli drone violating the airspace above. No Israeli strikes were carried out in the area at this time, contrary to earlier reports, our correspondent said.
Other reports mentioned an explosion of unknown origin after a man tried to unload wood, which reportedly left two people injured.
Israel closes only entry point for humanitarian aid into Gaza through Wednesday
Israel has decided to close the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt until Wednesday and reduce the flow of aid into the Palestinian enclave, according to three Israeli officials on Tuesday, reported by Reuters.
The decision was reportedly made on the basis that Hamas has not yet returned the bodies of the remaining deceased hostages.
Hamas, however, had previously indicated that recovering the bodies of some dead hostages may take longer, as not all burial sites amid the vast rubble of Gaza are known.
At least nine people have been killed in Gaza since dawn, including six in Gaza City, according to Al Jazeera.
Egyptian teams are currently operating in Gaza to locate and recover the remains of Israeli hostages, Qatari media outlet The New Arab reported.
Gaza summit: Iran's absence from summit not missed opportunity, Tehran says
Iran defended its absence from the Gaza summit, held in Egypt and co-chaired by U.S. President Donald Trump, on Tuesday, asserting that the country had not missed an "opportunity" on the diplomatic stage.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei asserted that participating in such gatherings "without precise calculations" could "harm the country's position."
"We suffered an illegal and criminal attack by the United States in June, and the Zionist regime also played a role in this action, with the green light and cooperation of the United States," he added, quoted by the Tasnim news agency, AFP reports.
"It is natural that we cannot participate in a meeting chaired by a party that boasts of such a criminal act," Baghaei said, referring to the United States.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated that U.S. President Donald Trump "can be either a president of peace or a president of war, but he cannot be both at the same time."
"One can hardly be called a president of peace while provoking endless wars and allying with war criminals," he said on X.
Ben Gvir's new intrusion into Al-Aqsa Mosque: Jordan denounces 'flagrant violation'
The new visit by Itamar Ben Gvir, a far-right Israeli minister, to the highly sensitive site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem has drawn the ire of the Jordanian Foreign Affairs Ministry.
In a statement, the Ministry denounced a "flagrant violation of the existing legal and historical status of the Al-Aqsa Mosque."
The Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, was built on the ruins of the Second Jewish Temple destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. It is located in the area of the Holy City occupied and annexed by Israel. While the site remains administered by Jordan, access to it is controlled by Israeli security forces.
"Israel has no sovereignty over the occupied city of Jerusalem or its Islamic and Christian holy sites," the Ministry added in a statement.
Last week, Itamar Ben Gvir, who is used to provocations against the Palestinians, had already visited the holy site to proclaim an Israeli "victory" over Gaza.
5 killed by Israel in Gaza: Francesca Albanese denounces one-way 'cease-fire'
Reacting to the news of five Palestinians killed in Gaza earlier this morning, Francesca Albanese, U.N. Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories, wrote on her X account: "Once again: the cease-fire, according to Israel, means 'you stop, I shoot.'" "Calling this peace is both an insult and a distraction," she added.
Before calling for "all eyes to be on Palestine," she wrote: "Israel must face justice, sanctions, divestment and boycott UNTIL occupation, apartheid and genocide end and every crime is held accountable."
Syria: Erdogan calls for rapid integration of Syrian Kurdish Forces
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the rapid integration of Syrian Kurdish forces into the central government in Syria would help accelerate development and promote national unity in the country, in remarks released Tuesday by his office.
"The rapid integration of the [Kurdish] Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria will also accelerate the country's development efforts," he told reporters on the plane returning from the Gaza summit to Egypt.
"We commend the Syrian government for moving forward with a vision that encompasses all ethnic and religious components of the country," the Turkish head of state added. "This is in the interest of both Syria and Turkey," he concluded, reports AFP.
Between 2016 and 2019, Turkey launched three offensives in northern Syria against Syrian Kurdish fighters and Islamic State (IS) militants.
Aid to Gaza: UN, Red Cross call for opening of all crossings
The U.N. and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have called for the opening of all crossings in the Gaza Strip to allow for the delivery of more humanitarian aid, following the entry into force of the cease-fire.
"To my knowledge, not all crossings in Gaza are open to humanitarian aid. This is the main problem at the moment, and this is what humanitarian workers, including the ICRC, have been calling for in recent hours," said ICRC spokesperson Christian Cardon at a press briefing in Geneva.
"We are calling for all crossings to be opened," insisted Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Gaza: Those responsible for 'genocide' must be brought to justice, says Spanish Prime Minister
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez affirmed that the truce agreement between Israel and Hamas should not be synonymous with "forgetting" and that the "main actors of the genocide" in Gaza will have to answer for their actions before the courts.
"Peace cannot mean forgetting, it cannot mean impunity," the socialist leader declared in an interview Tuesday with Spanish radio station Cadena Ser.
"The people who were the main actors of the genocide that was perpetrated in Gaza ... will have to answer before the courts, and therefore there can be no impunity," he added, when asked about the possibility of legal proceedings against his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, reports AFP.
Israeli army claims to have opened fire on 'suspects' in northern Gaza Strip
Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee stated that "earlier today, several suspects were seen crossing the yellow line and approaching Israeli forces operating in the northern Gaza Strip, which constitutes a violation of the cease-fire agreement" between Hamas and Israel.
"Several attempts were made to remove the suspects, who refused to comply and continued to approach, until shots were fired to eliminate the threat. The Israeli army reiterates its call on the residents of the Gaza Strip to comply with the army's instructions and not approach the forces deployed in the area," he continued.
Israeli army announces remains of 4 hostages returned Monday have been identified
The remains of four hostages returned Monday by Hamas have been identified, including that of Nepalese student Bipin Joshi, the Israeli army announced.
"Following the identification process [of the four remains] by the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, army representatives informed the families of Guy Illouz, Bipin Joshi and two other deceased hostages, whose names have not yet been authorized for publication by their families, that their loved ones have been returned for burial," a military statement quoted by AFP said.
South Lebanon: Israeli tanks spotted opposite Aitaroun
Israeli tanks were spotted near the Jal al-Deir site, which the Israeli army illegally occupies in southern Lebanon, and the Israeli site of Malikiya, opposite the town of Aitaroun (Bint Jbeil), as villagers went to the olive groves for the first time since the cease-fire to harvest their olives, our correspondent reports.
Hezbollah calls on Lebanese government to 'adopt unified official position' in face of Israeli attacks
Hezbollah MP Hassan Ezzeddine called on the Lebanese government on Tuesday to "adopt a unified official position" following Saturday's massive Israeli strikes on Msayleh in southern Lebanon, the most violent after nearly a year of truce, which left one person dead and destroyed numerous construction vehicles.
Gaza: 3 Palestinians killed by Israeli army in Shujaiya
The Israeli army killed three Palestinians in the eastern neighborhood of Shujaiya in Gaza City, an area still occupied by the Israeli army as part of the cease-fire agreement chaired by Donald Trump, local and Israeli media reported.
According to an Israeli military source quoted by The Times of Israel, the "three individuals approached troops operating in the area." "The soldiers initially fired warning shots, then, as the suspects continued to advance, they were targeted," according to the Israeli news site.
Future of the Middle East: 'I will decide what I believe is right,' says Trump
"I will decide what I believe is right" for the future of Gaza and the Palestinians, Donald Trump affirmed after the summit in Egypt, intended to consolidate the cease-fire reached between Israel and Hamas.
"Many people favor the one-state solution; others favor the two-state solution. We'll have to see," the head of state declared on the plane taking him back to Washington.
"I will decide what I believe is right, but it will be in coordination with other nations," he added, while deferring the issue to a later date. "I'm not talking about one state or two states. We're talking about the reconstruction of Gaza."
Gaza: 2 Palestinians injured by Israeli gunfire in Khan Younis
Two Palestinians were injured by Israeli army gunfire in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, according to Nasser Hospital, quoted by Al Jazeera.
Gaza: Violent clashes between Hamas and 'gangs'
"Violent clashes" have been taking place since this morning east of Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, between members of the security forces under Hamas' Interior Ministry and local gangs, allegedly supported by Israel, reports Al Jazeera, citing local Palestinian sources.
Hamas redeployed its security forces immediately after the cease-fire took effect. "It's because they want to end the problems. They've been transparent about that. And we've given them our agreement for a certain period of time," Donald Trump replied Monday when asked about the return of Hamas security forces to Gaza after the cease-fire. Reports of clashes between the Islamist group and rival factions are increasing in the enclave, as are videos of abuses committed by alleged members of the movement.
Occupied West Bank: Settlers attack Palestinians in village east of Ramallah
According to Al Jazeera reports, settlers attacked Palestinians and their property, setting fire to a vehicle, in the village of Beitin, located east of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. No casualty reports have been released.
South Lebanon: Israeli nighttime incursion near Aita al-Shaab
Shortly after midnight, three small Israeli military ATVs entered the Khallat Wardeh border area, heading towards the western outskirts of the town of Aita al-Shaab, in the Bint Jbeil district, reports our correspondent in the South.
A month ago, an Israeli army unit infiltrated Aita al-Shaab and dynamited a building belonging to a school for children with disabilities.
Lebanon: HRW calls for justice for Israeli strike that killed Issam Abdallah 2 years ago and targeted other journalists
The human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged Lebanon on Monday to seek justice for an Israeli strike that killed a Reuters journalist two years ago and injured others, including two AFP journalists.
On Oct. 13, 2023, a strike killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and injured six other reporters, including two Agence France-Presse (AFP) reporters, Dylan Collins, and photographer Christina Assi, who had her right leg amputated.
Independent investigations, including one conducted by AFP, concluded that a 120mm tank shell of Israeli origin was used. Israel has denied targeting journalists. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Morris Tidball-Binz, declared Friday that the shooting of the journalists was "a premeditated, targeted, and two-pronged attack by Israeli forces, a clear violation ... of international humanitarian law, a war crime." The day before, the Lebanese government had mandated the Justice Ministry to assess legal options for prosecuting Israel in this case.
The Lebanese government's decision "offers a new opportunity to obtain justice for the victims," HRW said in a statement Monday. Two years after the attack, "victims of war crimes in Lebanon remain without effective access" to justice, the NGO added.
Occupied West Bank: Israeli ground incursion in several northern towns
The Israeli army carried out a dawn ground incursion in several towns in the north of the occupied West Bank, including Nablus and Tubas, as well as surrounding areas, just hours after the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners as part of the U.S.-brokered cease-fire agreement in Gaza, local media reported, cited by Al Jazeera.
'Peace' with Iran: Tehran says Trump's call 'contradicts' US Actions
The call for peace launched Monday in Tehran by U.S. President Donald Trump "contradicts" the actions of the United States, which supported Israel's bombing of nuclear sites, the Iranian government responded Tuesday.
"The Foreign Affairs Ministry considers that the desire for peace and dialogue expressed by the American President is in contradiction with the hostile and criminal behavior of the United States towards the Iranian people," it said in a statement, responding to Donald Trump's statements on Iran during his address to the Israeli Parliament.
Good morning. We are now launching our live coverage of the situation in the Middle East, following the Gaza "peace summit" held in Sharm al-Sheikh, Egypt, in which U.S. President Donald Trump participated.
We will also be following developments in Lebanon, which remains under Israeli fire despite a truce agreement reached at the end of November 2024.
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