Live updates: Middle East crisis

The Israeli military has confirmed the four released female captives have returned to Israel, Al Jazeera reported.

“Today, as part of these ongoing efforts, we’ve welcomed home four more Israeli hostages after 477 days in Hamas captivity,” army spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a televised statement.

Hamas fighters have handed over four female Israeli captives to the Red Cross in Gaza City.

The captives were seen, alongside Hamas and Palestinian fighters, on a platform in Palestine Square in Gaza City. They were seen grinning before being turned over to the Red Cross.

Amid cheers from Palestinians, the Red Cross vehicles left the territory.

 

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Dozens of masked, armed Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters arrived at a key square in Gaza City on Saturday, where four Israeli women hostages are expected to be handed over to the Red Cross, an AFP reporter said.

Sources from Hamas and Islamic Jihad told AFP they had deployed around 200 members of their armed wings, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades and the Al-Quds Brigades respectively, to secure Palestine Square where the handover was to happen.

The planned release comes under a truce deal in the Gaza war that is also expected to see a second group of Palestinian prisoners freed.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for the “immediate and unconditional” release of all aid staff held by the Houthis in Yemen, Al Jazeera reported.

"Their continued arbitrary detention is unacceptable," Guterres said in a statement, adding that the UN is working to secure their release.

The UN has suspended all movements in or around areas in Yemen under the control of the Houthis after the armed group reportedly detained seven more of their staff on Friday.

The Iran-backed group — which have been carrying out a military campaign against Israeli targets and vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden to protest Israel’s war on Gaza — have not commented on the latest detentions.

Four female Israeli soldiers will be freed in Gaza, according to Hamas, as the second exchange of captives for Palestinian prisoners under the ceasefire agreement in Gaza is anticipated later today.

According to the Palestinian Detainees' Commission, the release of Palestinians under the deal will start from Israel's Ofer Prison, Al Jazeera reported.

More than 4,200 aid trucks have entered the Gaza Strip in the six days since a ceasefire began between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas, the United Nations said, although there was a large drop in the number of loads delivered on Friday.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said 339 aid trucks crossed into Gaza on Friday, citing information from Israeli authorities and the guarantors for the ceasefire agreement - the United States, Egypt and Qatar.

This compares with 630 on Sunday, 915 on Monday, 897 on Tuesday, 808 on Wednesday, and 653 on Thursday.

When asked why there was a large drop in the number of aid trucks on Friday, OCHA spokesperson Eri Kaneko said the UN and humanitarian partners "have been working as quickly as possible to dispatch and distribute this large volume of assistance" to some 2.1 million people across the devastated enclave.

The influx of aid this week compares with just 2,892 aid trucks entering Gaza for the whole of December, according to data from the UN Palestinian relief agency UNRWA.

The UN has said that there has been no apparent major law-and-order issues since the ceasefire came into effect.

"We are also scaling up the broader response, including by providing protection assistance, education activities and other essential support," Kaneko said.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees must end operations and leave all its "premises" in Jerusalem by January 30, Israel´s UN ambassador said Friday, affirming timelines set out in controversial Israeli legislation.

Defying international concern, Israeli lawmakers have passed a law that bars the agency, UNRWA, from operating in Israel and east Jerusalem, the sector of the city annexed by Israel following the 1967 Six Day War.

In a letter addressed to United Nations chief Antonio Guterres, Ambassador Danny Danon said "UNRWA is required to cease its operations in Jerusalem, and evacuate all premises in which it operates in the city, no later than 30 January 2025."

UNRWA is considered the backbone of humanitarian operations for Palestinians.

It provides aid to some six million Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Israel has also passed a law that prohibits contact between Israeli officials and UNRWA, but its parliament has not banned UNRWA from operating in Gaza or the occupied West Bank.

Two senior Hamas members, whom Israel said it had killed months ago, were buried in Gaza on Friday after their remains were discovered under rubble during the truce, AFP journalists reported.

Hundreds of people attended the funerals of Rauhi Mushtaha and Sami Mohammad Odeh during Friday prayers in the courtyard of the Omari mosque, a historic landmark in the heart of Gaza City that has been heavily damaged by Israeli bombing.

The bodies, draped in the green flag of Hamas, were carried on stretchers from the mosque to their burial site, accompanied by around 16 masked members of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian group.

Hamas officially acknowledged their deaths in a statement on Sunday, saying that they had fallen as "martyrs".

An Israeli drone strike on a vehicle near the West Bank town of Qabatiya killed two people, the Palestinian health ministry said on Friday, the fourth day of a large-scale Israeli operation in the nearby city of Jenin launched after the truce in Gaza.

The Israeli military said an air strike had hit a vehicle with what it said was a "terrorist cell" inside but gave no further details.

At least 12 Palestinians have been killed in the operation, Palestinian health officials said, including two claimed by the armed wing of Hamas. The Israeli military said it had also arrested 20 wanted suspects and seized weapons.

Armoured bulldozers and diggers have demolished houses and dug up roads in the crowded refugee camp adjacent to Jenin, a major centre of armed militant groups, where thousands of people have left their homes.