Israel receives names of dead hostages to be released; Israeli drone strike in Lebanon kills one person

One person was killed in an Israeli drone strike on the southern Lebanese border town of Aita al-Shaab, said the Lebanese Ministry of Health on Wednesday, a day after the deadline for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from south Lebanon.

The Red Cross on Wednesday called for privacy and dignity ahead of the expected release of hostages’ bodies from Gaza under the terms of a ceasefire.

Israel receives names of deceased hostages to be released from Gaza

Israel had received the list of the deceased hostages who will be released from Gaza on Thursday, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Wednesday.

In a separate video statement, Netanyahu said: “Tomorrow will be a very difficult day for the state of Israel. An upsetting day, a day of grief. We bring home four of our beloved hostages, deceased. We embrace the families, and the heart of an entire nation is torn. My heart is torn.”

The armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad said on Wednesday that it would release the body of Israeli hostage Oded Lifshitz on Thursday.

The group said Lifshitz was one of the hostages killed during Israeli strikes on Gaza.

Hamas is set to release the bodies of three other hostages on Thursday, members of the Bibas family.

Hamas militants captured Yarden and Shiri Bibas and their two children when they led an attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. Yarden was released on 1 February 2025.

Hamas will also release six living hostages on Saturday, including Hisham al-Sayed and Avera Mengisto, who were held in Gaza before the start of the war there.

One person killed in Israeli strike in south Lebanon

One person was killed in an Israeli drone strike on the southern Lebanese border town of Aita al-Shaab, said the Lebanese Ministry of Health on Wednesday, a day after the deadline for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from south Lebanon.

The Israeli military said in a statement later on Wednesday that it struck the border town to target who it described as a “Hezbollah operative” handling weaponry in the area.

Tuesday, 18 February was the deadline for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanese towns under a US-mediated ceasefire agreement which ended the war between Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia last year.

Israeli officials said some forces would temporarily remain in five positions across the border, a move they said is deemed essential for the country’s security.

Hezbollah, which suffered significant losses during the war, said Israel was still occupying Lebanese land and that it held the Lebanese government responsible for a pull-out of all Israeli forces.

Israel had been due to withdraw by 26 January, but this was extended to 18 February after it accused Lebanon of failing to enforce the terms. Lebanon at the time accused Israel of delaying its withdrawal.

The Lebanese health ministry also said two people were injured by Israeli gunfire in the southern town of Al-Wazzani.

Separately, the Lebanese civil defence service said on Wednesday that another 11 bodies were recovered from under rubble in four southern Lebanese villages from past attacks.

Residents have been returning to devastated villages searching for bodies after Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah killed more than 4,000 people, according to Lebanese authorities.

Red Cross calls for dignified handover of hostages’ bodies

The Red Cross on Wednesday called for privacy and dignity ahead of the expected release of four hostages’ bodies from Gaza under the terms of a ceasefire.

“We must be clear: any degrading treatment during release operations is unacceptable,” said the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in a statement.

The Hamas-directed hostage releases since the 19 January ceasefire have been characterised by large public ceremonies among Gaza’s ruins and have come under growing criticism, including from the United Nations, which denounced the “parading of hostages”.

The ICRC, a neutral intermediary responsible for releasing hostages and Palestinian prisoners under the terms of the ceasefire, has repeatedly called for improvements.

Polio mass vaccination campaign to resume in Gaza

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday that a mass campaign to vaccinate children against polio in Gaza would resume on Saturday, with more than half a million children targeted.

“The current environment in Gaza, including overcrowding in shelters and severely damaged water, sanitation and hygiene infrastructure, which facilitates faecal-oral transmission, create ideal conditions for further spread of poliovirus,” said the WHO statement.

“Extensive population movement consequent to the current ceasefire is likely to exacerbate the spread of poliovirus infection,” it added.

In September and October last year, the WHO conducted two rounds of vaccinations across the enclave, reaching more than 95% of its target.

The virus is still circulating in the enclave, meaning it could still reach a child who is under or un-immunised. Six samples tested positive in December and January, added the WHO.

Gaza should be rebuilt without displacing Palestinians, says Egypt

Egypt’s president called on the international community on Wednesday to adopt a plan to rebuild war-torn Gaza without displacing Palestinians, after a proposal by US President Donald Trump angered Arabs with his own vision for the enclave.

“We stressed the importance of the international community adopting a plan to reconstruct the Gaza strip without displacing Palestinians — I repeat, without displacing Palestinians from their lands,” President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told a press conference with Spain’s prime minister in Madrid.

Trump has proposed a plan to redevelop the tiny enclave into an international beach resort after resettling its Palestinian inhabitants. He called on Jordan and Egypt to take in Palestinians.

Egypt and Jordan, along with other Arab states, rejected the plan and said they would work on an alternative to counter Trump’s proposal, but there are no signs they are making serious progress.

Sisi added that the UN Palestinian Refugee Agency (Unrwa), which provides aid, health and education services to millions in the Palestinian territories and neighbouring Arab countries of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, was indispensable for Palestinians.

Unrwa said its operations in the Gaza Strip and West Bank will suffer after an Israeli law banned it in October on Israeli land — including East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in a move not recognised internationally — and contact with Israeli authorities from 30 January.

The United Arab Emirates president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, told the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday that his country rejected a proposal to displace Palestinians from their land, reported the Emirati state news agency WAM.

The leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE and Qatar are expected to discuss the plan in Riyadh this month before it can be presented to an Arab League summit in Cairo in March.

Israel indicts five reservists over alleged prisoner abuse

The Israeli military prosecutor has filed indictments against five reservists, alleging severe abuse and injury of a Palestinian prisoner at Sde Teiman prison, which included cracked ribs, a punctured lung and a torn rectum, said the military on Wednesday.

The indictments are the latest stage in a case involving a prisoner captured from an elite unit of Hamas, that has brought to light allegations of serious prisoner abuse at Sde Teiman, a military detention facility in southern Israel.

The alleged incident took place on 5 July 2024, while the five reservists were serving in the prison in the Negev desert.

According to the indictment, the soldiers are accused of carrying out the abuse during a search of the victim, in which he was cuffed at the hands and ankles and blindfolded.

“The indictment charges the accused with acting against the detainee with severe violence, including stabbing the detainee’s bottom with a sharp object, which had penetrated near the detainee’s rectum,” said the military in a statement.

“Additionally, according to the indictment, the acts of violence have caused severe physical injury to the detainee, including cracked ribs, a punctured lung and an inner rectal tear,” it said.

It said the evidence in the case was extensive and included medical documentation and security camera footage.

The case stirred fierce debate when it emerged last year, with civilian protesters breaking into the Side Teiman compound as well as another site as investigators questioned soldiers.

Israeli military authorities have investigated the case, which was denounced by politicians, but it was one of a series of similar incidents that Palestinians and human rights groups said formed a pattern of abuse.

Earlier this month, a military court sentenced a soldier to seven months in prison for severe abuse of Palestinian detainees over several months.

The widespread reports of mistreatment of detainees in Israeli prisons have added to international pressure on Israel over its conduct in the Gaza war.

UAE tells Rubio it rejects displacement of Palestinians

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) leader told the US secretary of state on Wednesday that his country rejected a proposal to displace Palestinians from their land, reported the Emirati state news agency WAM.

President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s comments came after  Trump proposed a US takeover of Gaza and resettling its Palestinian inhabitants in Jordan and Egypt, prompting widespread opposition among Arab countries and Western allies.

Nahyan told Rubio during a meeting in Abu Dhabi that it was important to link the reconstruction of Gaza to a path leading to “a comprehensive and lasting peace based on the two-state solution” to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

The UAE’s stance on the conflict is important because it is one of four Arab countries that normalised ties with Israel during the first Trump administration and because it has played a role financing reconstruction work after previous conflicts. DM

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