It comes as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu gets ready to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington later today.
The meeting comes at a critical juncture as the Israeli military’s deadly raids in the West Bank, particularly in Jenin, are undermining the fragile ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel, according to the UN.
Netanyahu has said the existing deal is for a temporary ceasefire and that Israel has reserved “the right to return to fighting” against Hamas at a future date. We are currently in stage one of the three-part deal, which began on 19 January 2025.
The schedule is going to plan as it was hoped that sixteen days after the start of stage one, negotiations would begin on the second stage, during which time it is hoped a permanent ceasefire will be established and Israeli forces will make a complete withdrawal as remaining living hostages are freed.
Key events
Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, led the forces that toppled the regime of Bashar al-Assad in December. Photograph: Khalil Ashawi/Reuters
The interim president of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has said his government aims to restore ties with the US but has not yet had any contact with the Trump administration.
Speaking to the Economist, Sharaa also called for US sanctions on Syria to be lifted, saying they pose the “gravest risk” to the country and its recovery from civil war.
“I believe that President Trump seeks peace in the area, and it is a top priority to lift the sanctions,” he said.
“The United States of America does not have any interest in maintaining the suffering of the Syrian people.”
The US and other Western powers imposed sanctions on the regime of former president Bashar al-Assad over his crackdown on protests that began in 2011 and his conduct of the subsequent civil war.
The toppling of Assad in December has led to calls for the sanctions to be lifted.
Last week, the European Union’s foreign ministers agreed to a “step-by-step” approach to relax some of the sanctions it has in place.
The second Israeli soldier killed in the attack at a military checkpoint in the West Bank earlier today has been named as 43-year-old reservist Avraham Tzvi Tzivka Friedman.
The other man killed was earlier named as Ofer Yung, 39, a squad commander from Tel Aviv.
Both men have also now been pictured.
Avraham Tzvi Tzivka Friedman, 43, was a reservist in the IDF. Photograph: IDFOfer Yung, 39, was a squad commander from Tel Aviv. Photograph: IDF
More now on that gun attack earlier today at a military checkpoint in the West Bank in which two Israeli troops were killed.
In a statement, Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad has described the attack as “heroic” and said “the resistance will continue until the occupation is defeated”.
Major General Avi Bluth, the Israeli commander responsible for operations the West Bank, vowed to continue the current offensive in the north of the territory in order to “neutralise” militants in the area.
“This morning’s engagement with a despicable terrorist who emerged from the northern Samaria region is the demonstration of the necessity of the counterterrorism operation,” he told journalists while visiting the scene of the attack.
Hamas says talks on second phase of Gaza ceasefire deal have started
It comes as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu gets ready to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington later today.
The meeting comes at a critical juncture as the Israeli military’s deadly raids in the West Bank, particularly in Jenin, are undermining the fragile ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel, according to the UN.
Netanyahu has said the existing deal is for a temporary ceasefire and that Israel has reserved “the right to return to fighting” against Hamas at a future date. We are currently in stage one of the three-part deal, which began on 19 January 2025.
The schedule is going to plan as it was hoped that sixteen days after the start of stage one, negotiations would begin on the second stage, during which time it is hoped a permanent ceasefire will be established and Israeli forces will make a complete withdrawal as remaining living hostages are freed.
15 freed Palestinian prisoners have arrived in Turkey, foreign minister says
15 Palestinian prisoners freed by Israel under the terms of the Gaza ceasefire agreement have arrived in Turkey, the country’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan has confirmed.
“A few days ago, 15 Palestinians came to Turkey via Cairo after they were released,” Fidan told a joint press conference with his Egyptian counterpart Badr Abdelatty.
The former detainees were issued visas by the Turkish embassy in Cairo, he said.
The first phase of the ceasefire deal, which runs 42 days from when it came into effect on 19 January, should see the release of 33 Israeli hostages held by Hamas in return for the freeing of around 1,900 prisoners, mostly Palestinians, being held in Israeli jails.
Upon their release, many of those prisoners were to be permanently exiled, with Fidan saying in Doha on Sunday that Turkey, which has been a vocal opponent of Israel’s war on Gaza, could take in a number of them.
So far, Hamas has released 13 Israeli hostages. All of them were alive. Five Thai hostages have also been freed by the Palestinian militant group but under a separate agreement.
The ceasefire in Gaza has allowed residents to begin the process of moving some of the rubble and debris left by Isreal’s operations in the territory.
Pictures show diggers being used to clear space and open a road in southern Gaza earlier today.
A Palestinian man operates heavy machinery to move rubble in southern Gaza. Photograph: Hatem Khaled/ReutersIsreali operations since 7 October have left widespread destruction in Gaza. Photograph: Hatem Khaled/ReutersThe ceasefire is now in its third week. Photograph: Hatem Khaled/Reuters
We have some voices from some of the people affected by the Israeli operation in the Jenin refugee camp.
Khalil Huwail, 39, is a father of four and has been forced to leave the area with his family.
“We stayed at home until the drone came to us and started calling for us to evacuate the house and evacuate the neighbourhood because they wanted to carry out an explosion,” he told Reuters.
“We left in the clothes we were wearing. We couldn’t carry anything. That was forbidden.”
He added that the camp was now “completely empty” but vowed that “we will go back to our homes”.
“We will not migrate to another area,” he said.
Kamal Abu al-Rub, the governor of Jenin, said that if the pictures of what Jenin now looks like were not captioned, “people would think it’s Gaza”.
“Same picture, different location,” he said.
Jenin heading in ‘catastrophic direction’, says UN
Recent weeks have seen a major operation by the Israeli military in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank.
The camp contains mostly people displaced in 1948 as the state of Israel was being established and their descendants.
On 21 January, just days after the ceasefire in Gaza began, Isreal launched Operation Iron Wall, saying its aim was to preserve its “freedom of action” in the West Bank and eliminate terror threats.
Jenin is known to be home to fighters from a number of militant groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The operation has so far seen dozens of buildings demolished and at least 25 people killed.
On Tuesday, Juliette Touma, a spokeswoman for the UN agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, said the camp was “going into a catastrophic direction”, adding that large areas had been “completely destroyed in a series of detonations by the Israeli forces”.
A statement from the UN on Monday said that, because Israel has severed contact with UNRWA, the group had received no warning ahead of the detonations and that they had put “civilians lives at risk”.
It added that Israel’s actions “undermine the fragile ceasefire reached in Gaza, and risk a new escalation”.
Two Israeli soldiers killed in West Bank shooting
Emergency workers at the scene of the shooting in the Jordan Valley. Photograph: Ammar Awad/Reuters
Two Israeli soldiers have been killed and eight have been wounded after a gunman opened fire on troops in the occupied West Bank.
The incident occurred today at a military checkpoint near Tayasir in the Jordan Valley.
The attacked opened fire with an M16 automatic rifle on a soldier coming out of a fortified bunker, Israeli media outlet Ynet reported.
The assailant was then killed in a gunfight.
The Israeli military named one of the soldiers killed as Ofer Yung, 39, a squad commander from Tel Aviv. The name of the second person killed has not yet been released.
Two of the wounded soldiers were in a serious condition, with the other six lightly injured, the military added.
More now on that visit to the US by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Ahead of his departure, Netanyahu said the fact he would be the first foreign leader to meet Donald Trump since his return to the White House was a “testimony to the strength of the Israeli-American alliance.”
He said the two would discuss “victory over Hamas”, confronting Iran, and freeing all remaining hostages in Gaza.
Netanyahu was originally scheduled to return to Israel on Thursday, but his office has now said he will remain in Washington until Saturday night, citing the “many requests for meetings from US officials” he had received.
Netanyahu will be in the US when the next planned release of Israeli hostages takes place.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the latest news from the Middle East.
Today, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington for talks with US President Donald Trump about the ceasefire in Gaza.
Ahead of the meeting, Netanyahu said Israel’s operations against Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran had “redrawn the map” in the Middle East.
“I believe that working closely with President Trump we can redraw it even further, and for the better,” he said.
In other developments:
Trump said on Monday he did not known whether the ceasefire deal in Gaza was going to last. “I have no guarantees that the peace is going to hold,” he told reporters.
Hamas is ready to begin talks on the details of a second phase of the ceasefire, two officials from the group told the AFP on Monday. “We are waiting for the mediators to initiate the next round of negotiation,” said one.
Israel continued its operations in the West Bank city of Jenin for a 14th consecutive day, with dozens of homes demolished and at least 25 people killed, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa
The Palestinian ministry of health said the Israeli military had killed at least 70 people, including 10 children in the West Bank, since the beginning of 2025.
More than 545,000 Palestinians are estimated to have crossed from southern Gaza to northern Gaza since the ceasefire came into effect, according to figures by the UN.
The Trump administration has asked congressional leaders to approve transfers of roughly $1bn worth of bombs and other military hardware to Israel, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing US officials. The sales would include 4,700 1,000-pound bombs as well as armoured bulldozers built by Caterpillar.
The head of Amnesty International, Agnes Callamard, said the ceasefire should not erase the events of the last 15 months and that Israel should held accountable for “genocide”. “If you have any sense of the future, you need a reckoning for the past,” she told Al Jazeera.
The office of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said the ongoing Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank amounts to “ethnic cleansing” and urged the US to intervene. A spokesperson said the presidency “condemned the occupation authorities’ expansion of their comprehensive war on our Palestinian people in the West Bank to implement their plans aimed at displacing citizens and ethnic cleansing”.
A car bomb killed at least 15 people in the northern Syrian city of Manbij. The attack was the second in three days and the deadliest since Bashar al-Assad was deposed in December. The office of the president vowed that those responsible would be help accountable.
Stay with us for updates on all the latest throughout the day.
Five Egyptian university teams will compete in the Shell Eco-marathon (SEM) Asia-Pacific and Middle East 2025 regional competition, taking place for the first t
