Thai captives released from Gaza


<sub>Five Thai citizens arrive in Israel after being released from Gaza





Ambassador of Thailand in Israel Pannabha Chandraramya welcomes the released Thai captives</sub>

Palestinians treated as ‘subhuman’ in Israeli detention: analyst

Basil Farraj, a professor at Birzeit University who studies political prisoners, told Al Jazeera that the release of many Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jail was being received with a mix of fear and anxiety from their families.

“[There are] the emotions of these families being able to hug their loved ones, but also the reminder of the cruelty that’s taking place inside Israeli prisons,” Farraj said.

He cited at least 58 Palestinian prisoners who have died in Israeli custody since October 7, 2023, and reports of Israeli torture and violence against prisoners. Those released on Thursday included children, as well as elderly people who had spent decades in Israeli custody, he said.

“Since October 7, the Israeli regime has been subjecting Palestinian prisoners — children, women, administrative detainees, adults, to brutal conditions of detention, where they have been denied medical care, denied food, denied any form of communication with their family members. They are restricting their communication with lawyers and subjecting them many of them to brutal isolation and solitary confinement.”

“This carceral system treats Palestinians as inferior, it treats them as subhuman.”

Palestinians are treated as subhuman in detention or not. And not just by Israel...

‘They’re going to do it’: Trump says Egypt, Jordan will take Palestinians from Gaza

The US president was asked about the plan he floated on Saturday that Palestinians from Gaza should move to Egypt and Jordan after the two countries rejected the idea.

“They will do it,” Trump told reporters on Thursday. “They’re going to do it. We do a lot for them, and they’re going to do it.”

Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said earlier on Thursday that rebuilding Gaza would take more than 10 years, after he was taken by Israeli forces on a tour of some parts of the Palestinian enclave.

Main events from Januari 30th

Israel commits 15 ceasefire violations in Lebanon in one day

We have been reporting on the Israeli military’s repeated ceasefire violations in southern Lebanon.

According to our Al Jazeera Arabic colleagues, Israeli forces committed 15 ceasefire violations on Thursday alone, bringing the total number of violations since the ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah came into effect on November 27 to 823.

Israel’s latest violations of the ceasefire took place in the southern districts of Marjayoun, Bint Jbeil and Hasbaiyya, as well as the Nabatieh and Tyre governorates.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry says Israel attacked hospitals 68 times since October 2023

The Ministry of Health in Lebanon has issued a new report mapping Israeli attacks on health facilities since the beginning of the hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel on October 8, 2023.

It concluded that Israel conducted 68 attacks on 38 hospitals. As a result, eight were closed and seven remained open, but only partially operational.

A total of 16 people were killed and 74 injured in these attacks. Twenty-five vehicles were also damaged.

Israeli military confirms strikes on targets in eastern Lebanon

Israel’s army said its fighter jets bombed “several targets of the Hezbollah terrorist organisation” overnight in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, in the latest violation of a ceasefire deal that’s been in place since November.

The Israeli military said it bombed the targets as they “posed a threat to the Israeli home front” and its armed forces.

It listed a “military site with underground infrastructure” as one of the targets it struck, adding that Hezbollah was using the site “for the development and production of weapons and transit infrastructure on the Syrian-Lebanon border”.

The Israeli military also accused Hezbollah of violating the ceasefire agreement by flying a reconnaissance drone into Israeli territory on Thursday.

As we reported earlier, the Israeli military violated the ceasefire agreement 15 times on Thursday alone.

_{Lebanese civilians carry a man injured by Israeli fire in Borj el-Mlouk, on the outskirts of Kfar Kila in southern Lebanon, on January 26}

Two killed, 10 injured in overnight Israeli air raid on eastern Lebanon: Report

We’ve been reporting on a series of overnight Israeli attacks on eastern Lebanon. One of the aerial attacks, in the town of Yanta in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, killed two people and injured 10, reports Lebanon’s National News Agency, citing the Health Ministry.

Israelis travelling to New Zealand asked to disclose details of military service: Reports

Israeli soldiers travelling to New Zealand have reportedly been asked to provide details of any military service, with at least one member of its military denied entry as a tourist.

Israeli and local media in New Zealand said visa applicants from Israel are being asked a series of questions about their time in the military, rank, units in which they served and where they served. Israelis are also being asked if they served in intelligence or a unit subject to accusations of war crimes in Gaza.

At least one Israeli soldier claimed to have been refused a visa based on their answers, according to The Times of Israel.

New Zealand’s immigration authorities denied this to local news outlet Stuff, saying they have not introduced any practices but could not discuss specific cases owing to the country’s privacy laws.

Australia has also started to require Israelis to provide details of their military service and denied two soldiers entry in December based on their answers, according to reports.


_{This still image from a video shows an injured Palestinian strapped to the front of an Israeli military vehicle as a human shield during a raid in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, in June 2024}

Israeli troops graffitied Gaza homes, left them ‘trashed beyond recognition’: Veterans

Breaking the Silence, an Israeli military veterans group monitoring rights violations in the occupied territory, has gathered testimony on the systematic graffitiing of Palestinian homes by troops in Gaza.

Based on testimony provided by a first sergeant in Israel’s 55th Brigade, who served in Gaza’s southern Khan Younis in 2024, the daubing of slurs, threats and sexual imagery by soldiers on walls in Palestinian homes was normalised and widespread.

“The walls are always being graffitied in the [Palestinians’] houses” in Gaza, the soldier told the organisation. “It’s pretty obvious that this graffiti isn’t something that’s allowed, but there wasn’t a single house I was in that didn’t have graffiti, not even one,” he said.

“There were children in almost all the houses we were in. We knew it for sure because you see children’s clothes. It bothered me, because they drew really sexual things, nudity, and it felt messed up to me,” he added.

“I think there was a really really big indifference towards the Palestinians and the fact that they’d have to go back to their homes. I think a lot of people believed that we had to inflict more damage, and that was their way of doing it.”

Just 4% of Israelis believe Gaza war aims ‘fully achieved’: Poll

Israel’s Maariv newspaper has released a survey assessing Israeli public opinion on the war in Gaza.

According to the poll, carried out by Lazar Research, 57 percent of Israelis believe that the country’s war objectives have not been “fully achieved” and 32 percent believe they have “not been achieved at all”.

Only four percent of respondents said Israel’s war aims have been “fully achieved” in Gaza.

_{An aerial view shows Palestinians walking past the rubble of destroyed houses and buildings in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, on January 19}

Hamas ‘message’ being received inside Israel

Large Palestinian crowds attending the captives’ release demonstrate Hamas’s “popularity and legitimacy”, according to Mohamad Elmasry, a professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.

“Clearly Hamas is trying to send a message of strength and confidence to all of the observers, not just Palestinians inside of Gaza, but also other Arab states, mediators and people that might have a say in post-war Gaza,” he told Al Jazeera.

There may be “a subtle or not-so-subtle” message for the Israeli government and society, Elmasry added.

“It is an attempt to humiliate the Netanyahu government. We have to remember that not only was Netanyahu saying very confidently that he would destroy Hamas completely – militarily and as a governing body – but he said that they were on the verge of doing so,” he said.

“I think Hamas is trying to send a message that you were wrong and it is being received inside Israel.”

_{Palestinians gather in front of Yahya Sinwar’s destroyed house as Israeli captives are due to be released in Khan Younis, Gaza on January 30}

US firm focused on hiring special forces veterans for Gaza checkpoint security: Report

New details revealed by the Reuters news agency shows that US-based security firm UG Solutions is specifically targeting the recruitment of US special forces veterans to work as armed security guards at the Netzarim Corridor checkpoint, located just south of Gaza City.

The company is currently attempting to hire nearly 100 special forces veterans, with some already on the ground in Gaza, Reuters reports. US contractors will be paid a daily rate starting at $1,100, with a $10,000 advance, and will be armed with M4 assault rifles and Glock pistols.

A spokesperson for UG Solutions – a low-profile company founded in 2023 and based in Davidson, North Carolina – said the rules of engagement governing when security contractors can open fire have been finalised, but he declined the disclose details.

“We have the right to defend ourselves,” the spokesperson said.

Israel demanded the presence of private security contractors to work with an Egyptian security firm to maintain checkpoints within Gaza as part of the ceasefire deal with Hamas.

_{A private security contractor at the Netzarim Corridor in Gaza on January 28}

Palestinian fisherman killed off Gaza’s coast

Israeli gunboats have shot and killed a Palestinian fisherman in Gaza’s coastal waters, near the Nuseirat refugee camp in the centre of the enclave, according to our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic.

Israeli forces have repeatedly fired at Palestinians, including fishermen, in recent weeks despite the ongoing ceasefire.

EU restarts border crossing monitoring mission in Gaza’s Rafah

The European Union has restarted its civilian mission to monitor the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt at Rafah, according to the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas.

“The EU’s civilian border mission deploys today to the Rafah Crossing at the request of the Palestinians and the Israelis. It will support Palestinian border personnel and allow the transfer of individuals out of Gaza, including those who need medical care,” she said on X.

Europe is here to help: the EU’s civilian border mission deploys today to the Rafah Crossing at the request of the Palestinians and the Israelis.

It will support Palestinian border personnel and allow the transfer of individuals out of Gaza, including those who need medical care pic.twitter.com/vDXVG0T43B

— Kaja Kallas (@kajakallas) January 31, 2025

Israelis celebrate closure of UNRWA as ban comes into effect

Video shows Israelis spray painting over a UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) sign as Israel’s ban came into effect on Thursday. A law that passed in October bans UNRWA from operating in Israeli territory, which includes occupied East Jerusalem.

UNRWA ‘committed’ to providing services to Palestinians despite ban

Despite an Israeli ban on its operations now officially in place but not yet enforced, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said it is continuing to work and remains “absolutely committed” to providing services such as free healthcare and education in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Speaking to the UN’s media platform, UNRWA spokesperson Jonathan Fowler admitted that the organisation was now operating in a “nightmare scenario”.

Fowler said that UNRWA has 5,000 staff still working in Gaza as the “backbone of the international aid operation” and their work may be compromised by the situation.

“Our biggest fear is that there is no plan B,” he said.

Israel has passed laws that stop UNRWA operating in Israeli territory as well as occupied East Jerusalem, and bans all “contact” between UNRWA and Israeli officials.

UK, France, Germany express ‘grave concern’ over Israel’s UNRWA ban

In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of the three nations reiterate their “grave concern over the implementation by the Government of Israel of legislation prohibiting any contact between Israeli State entities, officials and UNRWA and prohibiting any of their presence within Israel and (occupied) East Jerusalem”.

On Thursday, the law, which was passed in October last year, banned UNRWA from operating on Israeli land, including in occupied East Jerusalem, and contact with Israeli authorities is forbidden.

“No other United Nations entity or agency currently has the capacity or infrastructure to replace UNRWA’s mandate and expertise”, the statement read.

For more than 70 years, UNRWA has provided support for Palestinian refugees across the Middle East, but the organisation has often clashed with Israeli officials over its work.

Israel has repeatedly accused UNRWA employees of involvement in the October 7 attack without providing proof.

Israeli forces bomb Jenin camp, besiege Tulkarem hospital

As we have previously reported, the Israeli army has carried out a weeks-long military operation in the Jenin governorate in the occupied West Bank, which has more recently been expanded to the Tulkarem governorate.

The Palestinian Red Crescent now reports that Israeli forces have bombed the Jenin refugee camp, resulting in three women being wounded by shrapnel.

Our Al Jazeera Arabic colleagues also report clashes over recent hours between Palestinian fighters and Israeli forces during a siege on a house in a southern neighbourhood of Tulkarem.

Israeli forces are also besieging the Thabet Thabet Governmental Hospital in Tulkarem, according to the Quds News Network.

Israeli military wounds Palestinian in Fawwar camp

Israeli forces have wounded a Palestinian after storming the Fawwar refugee camp, south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, the Palestine Red Crescent reports.

Israeli military drone bombs besieged house in Jenin

We have been reporting on Israel’s ongoing assault on the Jenin area in the occupied West Bank, including a bombing which wounded three women earlier tonight. The Quds News Network and the Palestinian Information Center now report that an Israeli drone has bombed a besieged house in al-Yamoun town, west of Jenin.

No casualties have been reported so far.

Israeli forces besiege second house in Tulkarem, arrest 2 men

As we have been reporting, the Israeli military has stormed the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem and besieged several locations over recent hours. Heavy gunfire has been reported and Israeli reconnaissance flights are taking place, according to the Wafa news agency.

The Israeli military has surrounded a house in the Engineers Housing Complex in the east of the city, before demanding via loudspeakers that those inside surrender and arresting two men, according to Wafa.

Israeli military says it shot 2 suspects allegedly hurling firebombs near Bethlehem

The Israeli military has said its troops fired on two suspects it claims were throwing firebombs towards a highway from the Palestinian village of al-Khader, west of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.

“The soldiers fired towards the terrorists … and hits were identified,” the military said in a statement.

The condition of the men is not immediately clear. The Israeli military reported no injuries to Israeli citizens as a result of the firebombs thrown at Route 60, the statement added.

Israeli drone attack kills 10th Palestinian child in occupied West Bank in 2025

A 17-year-old was among a group of 10 people killed in a double Israeli drone attack in Tammun town in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday night, a child rights organisation said.

Defence for Children International (DCI) – Palestine said the slain teenager, Jihad Nasser Yousef Bani Matar, was brought to hospital after the deadly, no-warning attack with “shrapnel wounds and burns all over his body”.

There were no Israeli ground forces in the Tammun area at the time of the attack, DCI said, adding that Israel now routinely carries out air attacks “in densely populated areas with no regard for Palestinian children’s lives”.

The killing of the teenager brings the number of Palestinian children killed in the occupied territory so far this year to 10 – six killed in drone attacks and four shot dead by Israeli forces, the organisation said.

“No one has been held responsible for killing these ten children,” it added.

Israeli military claims to have killed two fighters in Jenin shootout

The Israeli military has released a statement on a series of deadly shootouts yesterday between its forces and Palestinian fighters in Jenin in the occupied West Bank.

The military confirmed that one of its soldiers, Staff Sergeant Liam Hazi, was killed and five others were wounded during initial close-quarters fighting with two Palestinian fighters in the city.

A few hours later, Israeli forces surrounded and killed the two Palestinian fighters that killed Hazi, according to the Israeli military.

Israeli soldiers “continue to operate in Jenin as part of a counterterrorism operation”, said the military update.