Middle East crisis: Israel names three hostages set to be released on Thursday – as it happened

We’re closing our live coverage of the Middle East for today. In case you missed anything, here’s a quick summary of all the day’s developments.

• Three Israeli hostages set to be released on Thursday under the terms of the ceasefire deal have been named as Arbel Yehoud, 29, Agam Berger, 19, and the man as Gadi Mozes, 80

• Five Thai nationals will also be released, an Israeli official said, although their names have not been released

• US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, is in Jerusalem and has met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

• Trump has announced plans to deport foreign nationals living or attending college in the US if they have taken part in the pro-Palestinian protests of recent years

• The death toll in Gaza since Israel launched its operation now stands at 47,417, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health

• Two Palestinians were also killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank overnight and into Wednesday, according to the ministry

• A Turkish ship carrying 871 tons of humanitarian aid for Gaza docked at the Egyptian port city of El-Arish

• Israel has dismissed claims by two Hamas officials that it is delaying the delivery of aid to Gaza as “totally fake news”

• Egypt has said the forced displacement of Palestinians on its territory or that of Jordan, as Trump has suggested should be done, would be an “act of injustice”

• The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, told the UN general assembly that “respect for international humanitarian law is in crisis” and “threatening the very humanity that these laws seek to preserve”, citing the situations Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank

• Al-Qaida’s affiliate group in Syria, Hurras al-Din, has announced its dissolution just weeks after the regime of Bashar al-Assad was toppled by Islamist group HTS

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The death toll in Gaza since Israel launched its operation in the territory following the 7 October attacks now stands at 47,417, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.

In its latest daily update, the ministry added that the latest figure for people injured was 111,571.

Speaking on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the World Health Organisation, Christian Lindmeier, said the ministry’s figures only included deaths counted in official facilities, such as hospitals and morgues, so were likely to be an underestimate.

More now on what we know about the group of hostages set to be released by Hamas on Thursday.

As well as the three Israelis who have been named, an Israeli official told the Associated Press that five Thai nationals would be released.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak on the record.

The names of the Thai nationals have not been made available.

Israel has named three Israeli hostages set to be released on Thursday under the terms of the ceasefire deal with Hamas.

An official named the Israel women as Arbel Yehoud, 29, Agam Berger, 19, and the man as Gadi Mozes, 80, according to the Associated Press.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record, said the hostages’ families had approved publication of their names.

Hamas named the three via mediators Egypt and Qatar.

It has just gone 5pm in Gaza City, Tel Aviv and Beirut, and 6pm in Damascus. Here is a summary of the latest developments in the Middle East:

• The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told the United Nations general assembly, in New York, that “respect for international humanitarian law (IHL) is in crisis” and “threatening the very humanity that these laws seek to preserve”. In a statement given on Tuesday, Mirjana Spoljaric, said she had seen “so much devastation” on recent visits to Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. At the event, Spoljaric called on states to join a global initiative launched by Brazil, China, France, Jordan, Kazakhstan, and South Africa with the ICRC to galvanise support for IHL.

• A Turkish ship docked at Egypt’s El-Arish on Wednesday, delivering the first aid destined for Gaza through the port since a fragile ceasefire went into effect, a Turkish official and Egyptian sources said. The ship was loaded with 871 tons of humanitarian aid, including 300 power generators, 20 portable toilets, 10,460 tents and 14,350 blankets, according to Turkish interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya.

• On Wednesday, Israel dismissed claims by two Hamas officials that had accused it of delaying the delivery of aid to Gaza and warned that delays could affect the release of hostages under the ceasefire deal. A spokesperson for Cogat, a unit in the Israeli defence ministry that oversees civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, said the accusations were “totally fake news”.

• Egypt has said it will not participate in the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. It comes after US president Donald Trump suggested the residents of Gaza should be moved out of the territory and relocated to Jordan and Egypt. A statement from the office of Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, on Wednesday said the policy would be an “act of injustice” and that his country would work with Trump towards a two-state solution.

• Donald Trump has invited Benjamin Netanyahu to be the first foreign leader to visit the White House, in a major concession to a US ally who is wanted by the international criminal court for war crimes. The invitation was made in a letter from the US president, which invited the Israeli prime minister to come to the White House on 4 February to “discuss how we can bring peace to Israel and its neighbors, and efforts to counter our shared adversaries”.

• Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank overnight and into Wednesday, said the Palestinian health ministry. The ministry said in a statement that a 25-year-old man it identified as Osama Abu al-Hija was killed late on Tuesday in Jenin “as a result of an Israeli airstrike”. Shortly after midnight on Wednesday, the ministry also announced that a 23-year-old Palestinian man it identified as Ayman Naji was killed in the northern city of Tulkarem “after being shot” by Israeli forces. The Palestinian health ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its reports. The Israeli army said it was looking into the details of both deaths.

• Five people were injured in an Israeli drone strike targeting the southern Lebanese town of Majdal Selm on Wednesday, the Lebanese health ministry said. On Tuesday night, Israeli airstrikes injured 24 people in Nabatieh, a major town in south Lebanon. The Israeli military said in a statement it had struck Hezbollah vehicles that were transporting weapons on the edge of Nabatieh.

• The international charity ActionAid has warned that Israel’s imminent ban on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa) will “devastate humanitarian aid in Gaza” and cut off “essential services” for millions. In a statement on Wednesday, ActionAid said it was “deeply alarmed” by Israel’s ban on Unrwa coming into effect. Israel has ordered the UN agency to vacate its headquarters in East Jerusalem by Thursday. The charity called on the international community to take immediate action to prevent it.

• The EU has promised €3bn (£2.5bn; $3.1bn) of financing and investments to Jordan as part of a new “strategic” partnership. European Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen, said the package, which runs from 2025 through 2027, would “enhance our cooperation on matters of common interest” and said the €3bn reflected the “urgency and scale of the challenges Jordan faces in the region.”

• Germany’s interior and foreign ministries are in consultations about sending a German contingent to the European Union’s civilian mission to monitor the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt at Rafah, spokespeople in Berlin said on Wednesday. The foreign ministry spokesperson said general conditions and ensuring the contingent would be deployed safely had to be taken into consideration.

• The director of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon said on Wednesday that the agency had not been affected by Trump’s halt to US foreign aid funding or by an Israeli ban on its operations. “Unrwa currently is not receiving any US funding so there is no direct impact of the more recent decisions related to the UN system for Unrwa,” Dorothee Klaus told reporters at Unrwa’s field office in Lebanon.

• Russia said on Wednesday it had held “frank” discussions with Syria’s new de facto leader as it tries to retain its two military bases in the country, but it declined to comment on what he was demanding in return. A Syrian source familiar with the discussions told Reuters that the new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, had requested that Moscow hand over former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, who fled to Russia when he was toppled by Sharaa’s rebels in December. Asked to confirm whether Russia had been asked to return Assad and pay compensation, Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, declined to comment.

• Trump has thrown into doubt the security and administration of the main two detention facilities in north-east Syria that hold thousands of Islamic State fighters, the former counter-terrorism director of M16, Richard Barrett, says. The state of limbo has been caused in the short term by the US president unexpectedly suspending all USAid funding for 90 days, and by long-term uncertainty over his willingness to retain troops in Syria.

• In a call, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, told the Egyptian foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty, it was important to closely cooperate to ensure that Hamas can never govern Gaza again, the state department said on Tuesday.

• An explosion has struck a Hong Kong-flagged container ship traveling north through the Red Sea, sparking a major fire that forced its crew to abandon the vessel, shipping industry officials said. The ship was drifting and ablaze about 225 kilometers (140 miles) off the coast of Hodeida, a port city in Yemen held by the country’s Houthi rebels, said the Diaplous Group, a maritime firm. It did not name the vessel.

• Conflict in the Middle East has affected efforts to tackle the ever-worsening ecological disaster facing the Dead Sea. “Regional cooperation is the key … to saving the Dead Sea,” said Nadav Tal, a hydrologist and water officer for the Israel office of EcoPeace, a regional environmental nonprofit that has long advocated for finding a solution. “Because we are living in a conflict area, there is an obstacle,” he said. The Dead Sea is nestled where Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian territory meet.

A Turkish ship docked at Egypt’s El-Arish on Wednesday, delivering the first aid destined for Gaza through the port since a fragile ceasefire went into effect, a Turkish official and Egyptian sources said.

“We are prepared to heal the wounds of our Gazan brothers and sisters and to meet their temporary shelter needs,” the Turkish interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya, posted on X on Wednesday.

The ship was loaded with 871 tons of humanitarian aid, including 300 power generators, 20 portable toilets, 10,460 tents and 14,350 blankets, according to Yerlikaya.

A team from the Egyptian Red Crescent received the Turkish aid to make the necessary arrangements for its delivery to the Gaza Strip, a source at the port, 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of the Gaza Strip, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Two staff from the Egyptian Red Crescent also confirmed its arrival.

Since the start of the truce in the Palestinian territory, hundreds of truckloads of aid have entered Gaza while some has been airlifted in.

Egypt has said it will not participate in the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.

It comes after President Trump suggested the residents of Gaza should be moved out of the territory and relocated to Jordan and Egypt.

A statement from the office of Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi on Wednesday said the policy would be an “act of injustice” and that his country would work with Trump towards a two-state solution.

A number of other countries – notably Qatar, which helped mediate the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and Jordan – have rejected Trump’s proposal.