Updates: Trump issues Hamas ‘last warning’, Israel maintains Gaza blockade

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To see Gaza residents’ reactions to Trump’s “last warning” to Hamas, click here.

To understand what comes next after direct US-Hamas talks, go here.

And follow along with all our coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza here.

This live page will close soon. But, before we go, here’s a quick look at the latest news:

• Support for Israel among Americans is at its lowest since the polling company Gallup started surveying them on this question.
• The US State Department will use artificial intelligence to revoke visas of foreign students who are perceived as supporters of Hamas, Axios reported, citing senior State Department officials.
• The US president confirmed that a senior US official held direct talks with Hamas recently about Israeli captives held in Gaza.
• Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said US discussions with Hamas were recent and the message to the Palestinian group was that the US wants to get captives home.
• Any Israeli military escalation against Palestinians would most likely lead to the killing of some captives, a spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, has said.

“What is there left to destroy?”

Palestinians in Gaza brushed off US President Donald Trump’s warning to Hamas that there will be “hell to pay” if Israeli captives in Gaza are not released immediately, in what he called a “last warning” to the group.

Watch below for more:

A spokesperson for Hamas’s political division has called on Trump to meet with Palestinian prisoners after he met with released Israeli captives.

In a public letter shared with Al Jazeera, the spokesperson, Basem Naim, wrote that while Trump speaks of the “unbearable suffering of Israeli captives in Gaza”, more than 9,500 Palestinians are languishing in Israeli custody across 23 detention centers, deprived of basic rights, denied family visits, and facing “ongoing psychological and physical torture”.

“We invite President Trump to show the same level of respect to freed Palestinian political prisoners and allocate the time to meet and listen to their stories,” he wrote.

Naim added that 62 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since the beginning of the latest war and that Israeli authorities are holding the remains of 665 Palestinians buried in “numbers graves” and “morgues”, some of whom had been detained as far back as the 1960s and 1970s.

Israel will allow some Muslims over 50 and their children from the occupied West Bank to enter Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Fridays during Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, Netanyahu’s office has announced.

A statement said a “limited number of Muslim worshippers” would be admitted, without specifying a number.

Those allowed are men age 55 and older, women age 50 and older and children up to age 12, who must also pass security screening.

“It is emphasized that there is no limitation regarding Israeli Arabs,” the statement added.

Support for Israel among Americans is at its lowest since the polling company Gallup started surveying them on this question.

According to new data released by Gallup, only 46 percent of Americans express support for Israel, down from the previous lowest point – 51 percent – recorded both last year and in 2001. Gallup started tracking responses to this question 25 years ago.

The number of Americans who say they support Palestinians is at 33 percent, up by 6 percentage points since last year.

The poll also found that only 40 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the Israel-Palestine conflict, lower than his already low overall job approval rating of 45 percent.

The US State Department will use artificial intelligence to revoke visas of foreign students who are perceived as supporters of Hamas, Axios reported, citing senior State Department officials.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is launching “Catch and Revoke”, AI-assisted reviews of tens of thousands of student visa holders’ social media accounts, the outlet reported.

Axios said officials were checking news reports of protests to identify students seen as sympathetic towards the Palestinian group.

Officials will also examine internal databases to see whether any visa holders were arrested but allowed to stay in the country during the Biden administration, the outlet reported.

“We see people marching at our universities and in the streets of our country … calling for Intifada, celebrating what Hamas has done … Those people need to go,” Rubio had said a few days after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack which sparked Israel’s war in Gaza.

Trump echoed the same in a January 30 White House fact sheet tied to an executive order aimed at “pro-Hamas” activity, Axios reported: “To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice. We will find you, and we will deport you.”

The White House administration is standing by the fact that there would not be a deployment of troops in Gaza, though what they say and what they do may be two different things.

However, what is very clear is that Trump will back Israel in whatever action it chooses to take should the captives not be released, so he is basically flashing a green light in the direction of Israel to restart full-on conflict in Gaza.

This goes against what it appears his special envoy to the region is doing. He’s been holding direct talks with Hamas, bypassing Israel, and is now on his way to Doha for talks with the region’s leaders there. So there appears to be a bit of a disconnect in terms of what President Trump thinks and what his diplomats are actually doing on the ground.

But it was made very clear again, and he’s said it repeatedly, that it is up to Israel to do whatever it deems necessary, and now he’s giving Israel a very, very clear green light to do what it deems necessary, even if it means an upsurge in the conflict.

Arab countries have agreed on a plan to rebuild and govern Gaza without displacing its Palestinian population, a direct response to United States President Donald Trump’s vision of transforming Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

What does Egypt’s plan entail, and what are its chances of success?

Watch Al Jazeera’s The Take to find out:

The attacks took place in the village of Haris, in the central occupied West Bank province of Salfit, Wafa reports.

Local sources told the agency that settlers raided the Abu al-Ula area on the outskirts of the village, where they uprooted and cut down the olive trees belonging to Khaled Aqel, a local Palestinian resident.

They also stole agricultural tools, including water tanks, Wafa reported.

The area has been subjected to several attacks by Israeli settlers and forces.

The head of UNRWA has condemned Israel’s large-scale demolition of homes in the occupied West Bank and warned that they are having a devastating impact on the lives of thousands of Palestinians.

“The refugee camps of Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams have been nearly emptied of their residents, with widespread destruction to civilian infrastructure including homes,” the agency’s commissioner, Philippe Lazzarini, wrote in a post on X. “People now face the prospect of having nowhere to return to.”

Lazzarini noted that the ongoing Israeli military escalation in the West Bank, which has already displaced some 40,000 people, is “the single-longest and most destructive since the second Intifada, resulting in the largest displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank since the 1967 war”.

He added that recent Israeli legislation targeting UNRWA has “created a vacuum of international presence when it is most needed”.

The US president confirmed that a senior US official held direct talks with Hamas recently about gaining the release of hostages held in Gaza.

Trump, talking to reporters in the Oval Office in Washington, said the effort is aimed at helping Israel and that the United States would not pay for the release of captives.

The Israeli military’s new chief of staff is expected to present plans for the resumption of fighting in Gaza at a meeting tonight, according to Israeli media.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that the new chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, is set to hold a situational assessment detailing plans to retake control of various areas across Gaza, including areas it left as part of the ceasefire agreement deal.

But officials who spoke with the newspaper also said that the military is facing challenges drafting the number of reservists needed for such a plan.

A number of Israeli reservists have indicated that they would decline to fight in Gaza and end their voluntary service instead, as they believe a resumption of hostilities would endanger the remaining captives and is based on political calculations.

We knew that the US had been involved in direct negotiations with Hamas. [Middle East envoy] Steve Witcoff says that has happened in the last few days.

That, of course, is a huge departure from normal American policy, where they don’t discuss anything with groups that they regard as terrorist organisations, something that they designated Hamas back in 1997.

But Witcoff said that those discussions were not promising simply because he didn’t believe that Hamas were acting in good faith, and that would explain why we got the TruthSocial post from Donald Trump late on Wednesday in which he effectively gave Hamas a final warning to release the hostages or else they would be killed.

He’s pushing forward with this idea that there will be more negotiations. As Steve Witcoff said, he didn’t care whether they call it phase one or phase two, what he wants to see is the release of the captives that are currently being held.

A new university disciplinary committee at Columbia University in New York City has initiated a flurry of cases against students who have expressed criticism of Israel, The Associated Press reports.

The committee, the Office of Institutional Equity, in recent weeks has sent notices to dozens of students for activities ranging from sharing social media posts in support of Palestinian people to joining “unauthorized” protests.

The office is raising alarm among students, faculty and free speech advocates, who accuse the school of bowing to Trump’s threats to slash funding to universities and deport campus “agitators”.

“Based on how these cases have proceeded, the university now appears to be responding to governmental pressure to suppress and chill protected speech,” Amy Greer, an attorney who is advising students accused of discrimination, told the Associated Press.

The Columbia campus saw a wave of student protests in support of Palestine last year that caused controversy and charges of stifling free speech as the university administration cracked down.

Secretary General of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Hussein Sheikh has met with German Foreign and Security Policy Adviser Jens Plotner, Wafa reports.

The meeting was also attended by German Ambassador to Palestine Oliver Owcza.

During the meeting, the PLO’s Sheikh discussed the ongoing Israeli military escalation in the occupied West Bank as well as the ceasefire agreement and reconstruction process in Gaza.

Plotner stressed the need for a just and comprehensive political solution based on the two-state solution as the only path to ensure security and stability in the region.

Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth quotes unnamed US sources who accused Israel of trying to obstruct talks between Washington and Hamas.

The Israeli government opposed the existence of a separate channel directly between Washington and Hamas, the report says.

It also claims that US officials did not inform Israel of the direct meeting with Hamas over fears that it would disrupt the talks, running counter to Israel’s claims that it was informed before they began.

Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said US discussions with Hamas were recent and the message to the Palestinian group was that the US wants to get captives home.

Witkoff also said that the US does not believe Hamas has been forthright in negotiations.

The US envoy additionally said that the Egypt-led Gaza plan was a “good-faith first step”.

Earlier this week, Arab leaders approved Egypt’s plan for Gaza’s future – including major reconstruction and elections.

This follows Trump’s proposal to forcibly expel Palestinians and turn Gaza into a US-controlled beach resort.