Updates: Hamas calls out Israel over Gaza truce as deal set to expire

We will be closing this live page soon. Here is a recap of today’s main events:

• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned “the coming days are critical” for maintaining the ceasefire in Gaza and urged all parties to uphold their commitments.
• Israeli military raids in Jenin, Tulkarem, Nur Shams camp and across the occupied West Bank continue with at least 50 people arrested.
• One Palestinian was killed in an Israeli drone attack in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip.
• Israeli forces targeted one of the Palestine Red Crescent Society’s crews with warning shots in the Nur Shams refugee camp.
• The Israeli army said its jets carried out an attack in the Hermel region of northeastern Lebanon, killing Hezbollah member Muhammad Mahdi Ali Shaheen.
• Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, during a tour of southern Lebanon, reiterated the urgent need for the full withdrawal of Israeli forces.

Earlier this month, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Israel is concerned Turkiye is supporting efforts by Iran to rebuild Hezbollah and armed groups in Syria and creating another front against Israel.

“Israel’s big fear is that Turkiye comes in and protects this new Syrian Islamist order, which then ends up being a base for Hamas and other militants,” said Aron Lund, a fellow at US-based think tank Century International.

Lund said Israel had a good chance of influencing US thinking, describing the new administration as wildly pro-Israel. “Syria is barely even on Trump’s radar now. It’s low priority and there’s a policy void to fill,” he said.

Turkiye has said it wants Syria to become stable and pose no threat to its neighbours. It has repeatedly said Israel’s actions in southern Syria were part of its expansionist and invasive policy, and showed that Israel does not want regional peace.

The United States has announced the approval of the sale of more than $3bn in munitions, bulldozers, and related equipment to Israel, which used US-made weapons to devastating effect during the war on Gaza.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio signed off on the sale of $2.04bn in bomb bodies and warheads, another $675.7m in other bomb bodies and guidance kits, and $295m in bulldozers and related equipment, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency said.

The funeral procession for Tsachi Idan, an avid football fan who was 49 when he was taken captive, began at a Tel Aviv football stadium en route to the cemetery where he was buried in a private ceremony.

His body was one of four released by Hamas early Thursday in exchange for more than 600 Palestinian prisoners, the last planned swap of the ceasefire’s first phase, which began in January.

“My brother is the real hero. He held on,” Idan’s sister, Noam Idan ben Ezra, said in an interview on Israeli radio.

She said Idan had been “a pace away” from being released during a brief ceasefire in November 2023 when more than 100 of the 251 people taken captive on October 7 were freed.

Hamas officials say Israel has freed about 1,700 prisoners so far. Hamas released in stages 25 living Israeli captives and returned the bodies of eight others under the Gaza truce’s first phase.

Among those released was Eli Sharabi, 53, who recounted his suffering in a televised interview.

“For a year and four months my legs were shackled with chains with very, very heavy locks that cut into your flesh,” Sharabi said. He spoke of intense hunger and food deprivation.

In return for the release of Sharabi and other captives, Israel is expected to free about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners in total during the first phase, which officially ends on Saturday.

A jury has convicted an Illinois landlord over the 2023 murder of a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy and the wounding of his mother in a hate crime.

Joseph Czuba, 73, was charged in the fatal stabbing of Wadea al-Fayoume and the injuring of his mother Hanan Shaheen on October 14, 2023, near Chicago. Prosecutors argued the family – who were renting rooms in Czuba’s house – were targeted because of their faith and as a response to the October 7 attacks in Israel.

Jurors deliberated less than 90 minutes over the crime, which renewed fears of anti-Muslim discrimination in Palestinian and Arab-American communities.

The boy was stabbed 26 times with a large military-style knife.

Switzerland has invited 196 states that are parties to the Geneva Conventions to participate in a conference next week on the situation of civilians living in the Israeli-occupied territory.

“Following this invitation from the UNGA [UN General Assembly], I confirm that a conference of High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention will be held in Geneva on March 7,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nicolas Bideau said.

The Fourth Geneva Convention, part of a series of international treaties agreed upon in 1949 after World War II, defines humanitarian protections for civilians living in areas of armed conflict or occupation.

The UN General Assembly asked Switzerland to organise the meeting last September when the Gaza war was still raging. Similar meetings have taken place in 1999, 2001 and 2014.

The Super Bowl halftime protester Zul-Qarnain Nantambu defends his reasons for demonstrating against the ongoing wars in Sudan and Gaza.

Watch below:

Palestinian human rights activist Shawan Jabarin has welcomed a plea by the US-based rights group DAWN for the International Criminal Court to investigate Joe Biden and senior US officials for aiding Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

In a video posted by DAWN, Jabarin, director of the Palestinian rights group Al-Haq, said the effort was long overdue.

“For decades we have called on the international community to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law, but time and again, the US has used its power and influence to block that accountability, to shield Israel from consequences and to ensure that it can continue its crimes with impunity,” Jabarin said.

“Now, finally, we see an effort to hold not just Israeli officials accountable but also those who have made these crimes possible: US officials who have armed, financed, and politically defended Israeli atrocities.”

Responding to DAWN's referral of Biden, Blinken & Austin to the ICC for investigation for aiding Israeli war crimes, @alhaq_org's @SJabaren says:

"Finally, we see an effort to hold" accountable "US officials who have armed, financed and politically defended Israeli atrocities." pic.twitter.com/yCpRaogE2I

— DAWN MENA (@DAWNmenaorg) February 28, 2025

Israeli forces expelled Palestinians from their homes in the Nur Shams refugee camp, east of Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank, Wafa news agency reports.

Citing witnesses, Wafa said Israeli soldiers forced people in the Jabal an-Nasr neighbourhood to leave their residences, ordering dozens to leave their homes at gunpoint.

In the al-Manshiyya area, several homes were set on fire.

Israeli soldiers continue their weeks-long military operation in the north of the occupied West Bank, targeting Jenin, Tulkarem and Far’a in Tubas governorate.

President Donald Trump took credit for the truce that his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff helped push across the finish line after a year of negotiations led by the Biden administration, Egypt and Qatar.

However, Trump has since sent mixed signals about the deal. Earlier this month, he set a firm deadline for Hamas to release all the captives, warning “all hell is going to break out” if it didn’t. But he said it was ultimately up to Israel, and the deadline came and went.

Trump sowed further confusion by proposing that Gaza’s population of some 2.3 million be relocated to other countries and for the US to take over the territory and develop it.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the idea, but it was universally rejected by Palestinians and Arab countries, including close US allies. Human rights groups said it could violate international law.

Trump stood by the plan in a Fox News interview over the weekend but said he’s “not forcing it”.

The harsh weather conditions in Gaza led to the deaths of seven babies from hypothermia, WHO chief Tedros says.

“Heavy rain. Constant cold. No home. Can you imagine your child living in such conditions? The best medicine is peace. We call for a permanent ceasefire.”

Heavy rain.
Constant cold.
No home.
Can you imagine your child living in such conditions?

Harsh weather is the current reality for people in #Gaza and has reportedly claimed 7 babies’ lives due to hypothermia.

The best medicine is peace. We call for a permanent ceasefire. pic.twitter.com/gm3wpjY1JW

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) February 28, 2025

Israeli military operations over the past month are causing widespread displacement and destruction in the occupied West Bank, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees says.

“Access to education for children, healthcare and basic services is in jeopardy,” UNRWA said. “Communities are struggling and fear is increasing.”

Earlier this week, Israel deployed tanks into the occupied West Bank and ordered its military to prepare for an “extended stay” to fight Palestinian armed groups in the area’s refugee camps.

The #WestBank is caught in a growing crisis of displacement and destruction, due to the Israeli Forces operation ongoing for five weeks.

Access to education for children, healthcare and basic services is in jeopardy.

Communities are struggling and fear is increasing.

UNRWA… pic.twitter.com/BbJj4NoyU3

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) February 28, 2025

As the holy month of Ramadan approaches, Palestinians lit steel wool sparklers amid the rubble in Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza.

In a report, the Israeli branch of Physicians for Human Rights said the Israeli military detained more than 250 medical personnel and support staff since the beginning of the war on Gaza in October 2023.

More than 180 remain in detention without a clear indication of when or if they will be released, it said.

“Detainees endure physical, psychological and sexual abuse as well as starvation and medical neglect amounting to torture,” the report said, denouncing a “deeply ingrained policy”.

Healthcare workers were beaten, threatened, and forced to sign documents in Hebrew during their detention, according to the report based on 20 testimonies collected in prison.

“Medical personnel were primarily questioned about the Israeli hostages, tunnels, hospital structures and Hamas’s activity,” it said. “They were rarely asked questions linking them to any criminal activity, nor were they presented with substantive charges.”

People in Lebanon conducted a delayed burial in a border village for more than 90 civilians and fighters from Hezbollah who died during the war with Israel that ended with a November ceasefire.

In the heavily damaged town square of Aitaroun, the coffins arrived on four trucks, some covered in the yellow flag of Hezbollah and others in the national flag.

Sobbing women, dressed in black, gathered around the vehicles holding photos of the Hezbollah fighters or the movement’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, killed by an Israeli air strike during the war.

One of the mourners, Atef Khouzeirat, said an Israeli strike on a building killed his son Hussein, a volunteer with the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee.

“My son stayed for 56 days inside the building after his death, without rescuers being able to recover his body,” Khouzeirat said. “Where is the humanity? Where are the human rights?”

Khouzeirat added his son studied radiography at university. “He was not a terrorist,” but a volunteer “in the service of his country”.

The State of Palestine has submitted a written plea to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) asking it for an advisory opinion regarding Israel’s obligations not to obstruct humanitarian and development assistance in the territories it occupies.  

In the submission, Palestinian officials affirmed the responsibility of Israel, as an occupying power, to not obstruct the work of the UN, international organisations, and third states so they can provide essential services, humanitarian aid, and development assistance to the Palestinian people. 

Many states, as well as international groups, have submitted written pleas to the ICJ ahead of oral proceedings set to start in April. Last July, the ICJ issued a historic advisory opinion determining Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and should come to an end “as rapidly as possible”.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, during a tour of southern Lebanon, reiterated the urgent need for the full withdrawal of Israeli forces.

“Any delay in this constitutes a violation of Lebanese sovereignty, Resolution 1701, and the arrangements for the cessation of hostilities as agreed to by the previous government,” he said in a post on X.

A ceasefire deal agreed in November 2024 halted more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, including two months of all-out war in which Israel’s relentless bombing killed more than 4,000 people, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

Under the deal, Lebanon’s military was to deploy alongside UN peacekeepers as the Israeli army withdrew over a 60-day period that was later extended to February 18.

Israel announced just before the deadline it would temporarily keep troops in “five strategic points” near the border.