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Tens of thousands of Palestinians begin journey home to devastated northern Gaza
Palestinian people displaced throughout Israel’s war on Gaza are finally returning home after an agreement was reached to release Arbel Yehoud – an Israeli civilian hostage – along with two other hostages.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed earlier that the hostage release - which will include female soldier Agam Berger - will take place on Thursday. Another three hostages are expected to be released on Saturday as previously planned.
It means tens of thousands of Palestinian people are now heading home to the devastated northern areas of the strip – such as Jabalia and Beit Hanoun - after forced displacement by the Israeli military during the war. Some of these people have spoken to the Associated Press.
Yasmin Abu Amshah, a mother of three, said she walked 6 kilometers (nearly 4 miles) to reach her home in Gaza City, where she found it damaged but still habitable. She also saw her younger sister for the first time in over a year.
“It was a long trip, but a happy one,” she said. “The most important thing is that we returned.”
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EU agrees 'roadmap' to end Syria sanctions
Moving away briefly from developments in Gaza, the EU’s foreign ministers have agreed to a “roadmap” to lift current sanctions on Syria.
The sanctions were imposed on the regime of former president Bashar al-Assad, and his fall late last year has led to calls for the sanctions to be lifted to help the country recover from a years-long civil war.
On Monday, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, Kaja Kallas, said the bloc’s foreign ministers had “agreed on a roadmap to ease the EU sanctions on Syria”.
“While we aim to move fast, the lifting of sanctions can be reversed if wrong steps are taken,” she wrote on X.
Syria’s foreign minister, Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, said he welcomed the “positive step taken by the European Union to suspend sanctions on Syria for one year” and that he looked forward to “seeing them lifted completely”.
“We hope that this decision will have a constructive impact on all aspects of life for the Syrian people and ensure sustainable development,” he said.
EU Foreign Ministers just agreed on a roadmap to ease the EU sanctions on Syria.
While we aim to move fast, the lifting of sanctions can be reversed if wrong steps are taken.
A Hamas delegation has arrived in Egyptian capital Cairo to discuss the implementation of the ceasefire deal to end the war in Gaza, the group said in a statement.
Egypt was among the countries that helped broker a deal between Israel and Hamas agreed earlier this month.
Twins Mahmoud and Ibrahim al-Atout had not seen each other for more than a year.
After Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza following the 7 October attacks, Ibrahim was displaced to the south of the strip, while Mahmoud remained in the north.
Footage shows their emotional reunion after residents were allowed to begin returning to the north on Monday.
Two killed by Israeli gunfire in southern Lebanon, says health ministry
Two people have been killed and 17 have been injured by gunfire from Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, the country’s health ministry has said.
It comes on the second day of protests over the continued presence of Israeli troops in the area.
Under the terms of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah brokered by the US in November, Israel was to withdraw its troops by Sunday.
On Friday, Israel said the terms of the ceasefire had not been fully implemented by the Lebanese state and that its forces would remain in southern Lebanon beyond the deadline, sparking demonstrations from people trying to return to their homes in the area.
At least 22 people were killed and 130 were wounded on Sunday after Israeli troops fired at protesters.
The US and Lebanon have announced that the deadline to meets the terms of the ceasefire has been extended to 18 February.
President Trump’s proposal that Palestinians should be moved out of Gaza and into Egypt and Jordan is not “overly practical”, a key Senate ally has said.
On Saturday, Trump described Gaza as a “demolition site” and suggested the next step should be to “just clean out that whole thing”, adding that the move “could be temporary” or “could be long-term”.
Asked what he thought the president had meant on CNN’s State of the Union, Senator Lindsey Graham said: “You know, I really don’t know.
“The idea Hamas survives is a nonstarter for me. But the idea that all the Palestinians are going to leave and go somewhere else, I don’t see that to be overly practical.
“Does the Arab world support sending out the Palestinians out of Gaza? I’d be surprised if they did.
“I think they want the Palestinians to be able to live with dignity and security for Israel.”
Palestinians retuning to their homes in northern Gaza are being checked for weapons as they enter the area, according to reports.
Witnesses told Reuters that checkpoints in the so-called Netzarim Corridor – a strip of land across the centre of Gaza that Israel has occupied since the start of the current conflict – are being run by Egyptian contractors with the help of a US private security firm.
Vehicles crossing the corridor are emptied of their passengers and directed through a drive-in inspection point.
A scanner is then used to check each vehicle for weapons or explosives, with the whole process taking a few minutes.
Further to our earlier report, eight of the hostages due for release in the first phase of a truce deal between Israel and Hamas are dead, Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said on Monday.
“The families have been informed of the situation of their relatives,” Mencer told reporters, without providing the names of the deceased.
That means that of the 26 hostages yet to be freed under the first phase of the agreement, only 18 are still alive.
The truce deal, announced earlier in January after months of fruitless negotiations, took effect on 19 January, bringing to a halt more than 15 months of war sparked by Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack.
Under the first phase of the agreement, 33 hostages held by militants in Gaza are to be released in exchange for more than 1,900 Palestinians held by Israel.
Seven Israeli women have been released since the start of the truce, as have 290 Palestinian prisoners.
A source close to Hezbollah said that Israel’s army detained seven fighters from the Lebanese militant group during more than a year of hostilities between the two sides before the ceasefire was agreed to in November. The following is from a report from the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency:
“Seven fighters from Hezbollah were taken prisoner” by Israel before the 27 November truce went into effect, the source said, requesting anonymity as the matter is sensitive.
Four other people were apprehended by the Israeli military on Sunday in south Lebanon border villages, the source added, without identifying them as fighters.
Under the ceasefire deal, the Lebanese military was to deploy alongside United Nations peacekeepers in the south as the Israeli army withdrew over a 60-day period that ended on Sunday.
Hundreds of people have been trying since then to return home even though the Israeli army, which in September began ground operations in Lebanon, has not fully withdrawn.
The White House said Sunday that the deal had been extended until 18 February, and caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati said Lebanon would respect the extension.
The Gaza ceasefire’s initial phase, which came into effect on 19 January 2025, is expected to last six weeks, with Israeli captives being exchanged for Palestinian prisoners every Saturday.
It is expected that Hamas will deliver hostages to the Red Cross on each of these Saturdays to be conveyed to Israeli forces, and then Palestinian prisoners will be released from jail hours later.
Three hostages and 90 Palestinian prisoners were released in the first swap on 19 January. On Saturday, four female Israeli soldiers taken hostage by Hamas on 7 October 2023 were released, as were around 200 Palestinian prisoners held at Ofer military prison in the occupied West Bank.
Twenty five Israeli hostages in Gaza still alive – report
Twenty five out of 33 hostages on the Hamas list are alive, according to an Israeli government spokesperson.
Reuters quoted the spokesperson, who was commenting after Hamas provided more detail of who was alive and dead on the list of the 33 people due for release in the first phase of the truce deal.
“The families have been informed of the situation of their relatives,” Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said.
Approximately 90 hostages are still in captivity. Prior to this announcement, Israel believed at least 35 of them were dead.
As previously mentioned in the blog, sanctions imposed on Syria could soon be lifted as part of actions to provide some relief to the new government in Damascus, the EU’s top diplomat has said.
Kaja Kallas, high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy, was speaking at the start of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.
“It is a step for step approach,” she said, amid European moves reconstruction of the war-ravaged country and build bridges with its new leadership after the end of the Assad family’s five-decade rule.
Brussels says it is now willing to ease sanctions on the expectation the new authorities make good on commitments to form an inclusive transition.
“If they are doing the right steps, then we are willing to do the steps on our behalf as well,” Kallas said.
France’s foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the EU could start by suspending sanctions on the energy, transport and banking sectors.
Iran has purchased Russian-made Sukhoi-35 fighter jets, a senior Revolutionary Guards commander has aid, amid Western concerns about Tehran and Moscow’s growing military cooperation.
This is the first time an Iranian official has confirmed the purchase of Su-35 jets, reports Reuters.
However, Ali Shadmani, who was quoted by the Student News Network, did not clarify how many jets were purchased and whether they had already been delivered to Iran.
Israel’s actions in relation to the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, Unrwa – which says it has been ordered cease all of its operations in occupied East Jerusalem by Thursday - would amount to the first forced eviction of a UN agency from a member state, writes the Guardian’s Diplomatic Editor, Patrick Wintour.
That’s part of a piece he has written on what Israels actions towards Unrwa may mean for Palestinians.
Unrwa has 7,000 trucks of supplies outside Gaza and 1,500 under procurement, according to Sam Rose, its acting director of emergency operations.
He told the Guardian he expected it to have provided food parcels to 1 million people in the 10 days since the ceasefire, and was also primed to send stocks including tarpaulins and mattresses for 1.6 million people.
Netanyahu plans to meet with Trump next week at the White House - report
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to meet with US President Donald Trump at the White House next week, Israel’s Walla News website reported on Monday, citing three unnamed Israeli and American sources.
This is reportedly a gesture from the Republican president towards Netanyahu in light of the Gaza ceasefire deal that Trump has claimed credit for. The visit to the White House would be the first of any foreign leader to Washington since Trump re-entered office last week. Here is an extract from the Walla report:
Israeli and American officials said that the current plan is for Netanyahu to arrive in Washington on 3 February and leave on 5 February.
Netanyahu’s advisers and White House officials are still trying to determine the exact date for the meeting between Netanyahu and Trump.
Israeli officials said that Netanyahu’s arrival in Washington depends primarily on whether his health following the (prostate) surgery (he underwent last month) will allow Netanyahu to take a 12-hour flight and an intensive schedule of work meetings.
Netanyahu, who was one of the first to congratulate Trump when he beat Kamala Harris in the November US presidential elections, has called the Republican the “best friend Israel has ever had in the White House”.
During Trump’s first term, he delivered significant diplomatic wins for the Israeli prime minister, including recognising Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights in 2019 and supporting the Abraham accords with Gulf states.
On Saturday Trump said he had ordered the resumption of shipments of some of the largest bombs to Israel.
At least two people have been killed by Israeli forces in an attack on the Nur Shams camp in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera has cited the Palestinian health ministry as saying. We will bring you more on this as more information comes in.
