Freed Palestinian inmates were greeted by a cheering crowd in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah yesterday, after Hamas released three Israeli hostages from the Gaza Strip in the fourth exchange under the group’s ceasefire deal with Israel.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has demanded that 2,500 children be immediately evacuated from Gaza for medical treatment after meeting with US doctors who said the children were at imminent risk of death in the coming weeks.

The Israeli military said it intercepted a surveillance drone launched by Lebanese militant group Hezbollah yesterday amid a fragile ceasefire.

Iran is ready to discuss its nuclear programme if Western countries show they are “serious”, the foreign ministry spokesman was quoted as saying in an interview published yesterday.

Israel cut ties with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees yesterday following accusations it provided cover for Hamas, a move likely to hamper delivery of its vital services after 15 months of offensive in Gaza.

Two Hamas officials yesterday accused Israel of delaying the delivery of vital humanitarian aid to Gaza, as agreed in the ceasefire deal, and warned that it could impact the release of hostages.

Five people were injured in an Israeli drone strike targeting the southern Lebanese town of Majdal Selm yesterday, the Lebanese health ministry said.

More than 300,000 Palestinians have crossed from southern Gaza into the north, the Hamas-run Gaza media authority said in a statement early yesterday, as the United Nations warned that “needs on the ground remain immense”.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed along the main roads leading north in Gaza yesterday after Hamas agreed to hand over three Israeli hostages later this week and Israeli forces began to withdraw from a main corridor across the enclave.

US President Donald Trump floated a plan to “just clean out” Gaza, and said he wants Egypt and Jordan to take Palestinians from the territory, as a fragile truce between Israel and Hamas aimed at permanently ending the war entered its second week yesterday.

Israeli forces killed 15 people in south Lebanon yesterday as a deadline for their withdrawal passed and thousands of people tried to return to their homes in defiance of Israeli military orders, Lebanese authorities said.

The Israel-Hamas war has put back development in Gaza by 60 years and mobilising the tens of billions of dollars needed for reconstruction will be an uphill task, the United Nations said.

Palestinian militants and Israel carried out a hostage-prisoner swap yesterday under a Gaza ceasefire deal, but a last-minute dispute blocked the expected return of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to devastated northern Gaza.

Israeli operations in the West Bank have killed at least 12 Palestinians since Tuesday and could threaten the newly agreed ceasefire in Gaza, United Nations Human Rights office spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said yesterday.

A Palestinian official said hundreds of residents of the occupied West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp were leaving their homes yesterday, days into a large-scale Israeli raid in the area.

A Palestinian official reported shooting and explosions in the flashpoint West Bank town of Jenin yesterday as Israeli forces pressed on with a raid that the military described as a “counterterrorism” operation.

Guns may have fallen silent in Gaza, but for Mahmoud Abu Dalfa, the agony is not over. He is desperately searching for the bodies of his wife and five children trapped under the rubble of his house since the early months of the war.

The Israel-Hamas ceasefire entered a third day yesterday, while US President Donald Trump said he doubted the fragile deal would hold.

A fragile ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war was holding yesterday, following the dramatic exchange of three hostages for 90 Palestinian prisoners in an agreement aimed at ending more than 15 months of offensive in Gaza.

Thousands of displaced, war-weary Gazans set off across the devastated Palestinian territory to return to their home areas yesterday after a long-awaited truce between Israel and Hamas took effect following an initial delay.