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An aerial photograph taken by a drone shows the destruction...

An aerial photograph taken by a drone shows the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. Credit: AP/Mohammad Abu Samra

Palestinian health authorities said an Israeli airstrike in the northern West Bank killed at least 10 people late Wednesday, as Israeli forces have carried out a major crackdown in the occupied territory during the ceasefire in Gaza.

Israel's military said a fighter jet targeted a Palestinian militant cell based on intelligence. Hamas mourned the men killed but did not claim them as members.

The tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is aimed at ending the war in Gaza and securing the release of dozens of hostages held by the militant group, as well as hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned or detained by Israel. The truce does not apply to the West Bank.

Under the ceasefire, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have jubilantly returned to northern Gaza over the past three days. However, their homecoming has been bittersweet as nearly everyone has friends or relatives who died, and many northern neighborhoods have been transformed into an apocalyptic landscape of devastation by more than 15 months of war.

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Here's the latest:

Israeli strike in the West Bank kills at least 10 people, officials say

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian health authorities say an Israeli airstrike in the northern West Bank has killed at least 10 people late Wednesday.

Buildings that were destroyed by the Israeli air and ground...

Buildings that were destroyed by the Israeli air and ground offensive are seen at the Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood in Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. Credit: AP/Mohamamd Abu Samra

The Israeli military said the strike by a warplane targeted a Palestinian militant cell in the area based on intelligence.

Israel’s use of a jet fighter to strike the rural village of Tamoun late Wednesday marked the latest escalation in its intensifying crackdown on Palestinian militants in the occupied territory. Residents of Tamoun said that the airstrike hit a house in a crowded neighborhood. The Palestinian Health Ministry cautioned that the death toll was likely to rise.

Before the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Israeli airstrikes in the West Bank were relatively rare. Israel says its increased military raids are aimed at combating rising Palestinian militant attacks against Israelis, including shootings.

Palestinians say the extensive military operations — such as the ongoing raid in the Jenin refugee camp that has so far killed at least 18 Palestinians — only deepen resentment for Israel and prolong the cycle of bloodshed.

Buildings that were destroyed by the Israeli air and ground...

Buildings that were destroyed by the Israeli air and ground offensive are seen at the Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood in Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. Credit: AP/Mohamamd Abu Samra

In a statement, Hamas mourned the men killed in Tamoun but did not claim them as members. It called on Palestinians across Israel and the occupied West Bank to mobilize against Israel in hopes of making it “pay the price for its crimes.”

Israel will release prominent militant Zakaria Zubeidi in hostage swap

RAMALLAH, West Bank — A list of more than 100 Palestinian prisoners that Israel is set to release on Thursday in exchange for three hostages includes Zakaria Zubeidi, a prominent former militant leader and theater director whose dramatic jailbreak in 2021 thrilled Palestinians and stunned the Israeli security establishment.

Zubeidi once led the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade — an armed group affiliated with Fatah, the secular political party that controls the Palestinian Authority — which carried out deadly attacks against Israelis during a Palestinian uprising between 2000 and 2005.

After the uprising, in 2006, Zubeidi established a theater in his hometown in the northern West Bank to promote what he described as cultural resistance to Israel. Even today, the Freedom Theater in Jenin refugee camp puts on everything from Shakespeare to stand-up comedy to plays written by residents.

In 2019, after Zubeidi had already served years in prison for attacks in the early 2000s, Israel arrested him again over his alleged involvement in shooting attacks that targeted buses of Israeli settlers in the West Bank but caused no injuries.

Zubeidi has been awaiting trial in prison since. He denies the charges, insisting he focused on political activism as a member of Fatah and a prisoner advocacy group.

In 2021, he and five other prisoners tunneled out of a maximum-security prison in northern Israel, an escape that helped solidify Zubeidi’s image among Palestinians as a folk hero. All six escapees were recaptured days later.

Syrian rebel leader is named country’s interim president

DAMASCUS, Syria — The leader of Syria’s former rebels who toppled President Bashar Assad last month was named the country’s interim president on Wednesday as ex-insurgents also cancelled the existing constitution, saying a new charter would be drafted soon.

The appointment of Ahmad al-Sharaa, a rebel who was once aligned with al-Qaida, as the country’s president “in the transitional phase” came after a meeting of the insurgents in Damascus, the Syrian capital.

Al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, is the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist former insurgent group that led the lightning offensive that toppled Assad last month. The group was once affiliated with al-Qaida but has since denounced its former ties, and in recent years al-Sharaa has sought to cast himself as a champion of pluralism and tolerance.

His appointment as president was made by the spokesperson for the de facto government’s military operations sector, Col. Hassan Abdul Ghani, the state-run SANA news agency said.

Abdul Ghani also announced the cancelation of the country’s constitution passed in 2012 under Assad’s rule and said al-Sharaa would be authorized to form a temporary legislative Council until a new constitution is drafted.

He also announced the dissolution of the armed factions in the country, which he said would be absorbed into state institutions.

Israeli military plans to keep troops in a West Bank city indefinitely, defense minister says

JERUSALEM — Israel's defense minister indicated Wednesday that the military plans to keep soldiers in the flashpoint city of Jenin for the foreseeable future, as Israeli forces have focused on a major crackdown in the northern West Bank during the ceasefire in Gaza.

Israel Katz pledged that the urban refugee camp in Jenin — long a bastion for Palestinian militancy — “will not return to what it was.”

The military said it has killed 18 alleged Palestinian militants during the nine-day operation in and around Jenin, during which soldiers and armored bulldozers have caused widespread damage and destroyed scores of homes.

Palestinian health officials have not released a total death toll, but say Israeli fire has killed roughly 20 Palestinians since the start of the raid, including a 2-year-old girl. Israel’s military has pledged to investigate her death.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said two Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank overnight and into Wednesday.

A 23-year-old man was shot dead in Tulkarem and a 25-year-old man was killed in a strike on Jenin. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its reports.

Israeli expert warns that the ongoing West Bank operation lacks a clear goal

JERUSALEM — Michael Milshtein, an Israeli expert on Palestinian affairs and a former Israeli intelligence officer, said he is worried that the military’s current operation in the West Bank city of Jenin lacked a clear goal and risked entrenching an Israeli presence there.

Israel’s raid follows a recent — and rare — incursion into Jenin by the the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the occupied territory and is deeply unpopular among Palestinians.

“We are faced with a situation where the Palestinian Authority didn’t solve anything in Jenin,” Milshtein said Wednesday. “I’m very worried that in a short amount of time we will find ourselves as the ones responding to civil issues there as well.”

The West Bank has seen a surge in violence since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of the Gaza Strip ignited the war there.

Turkey says 3 of its citizens were killed by Israel trying to cross from Lebanon

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey announced Wednesday that three of its citizens were killed by Israeli airstrikes while attempting to cross illegally from Lebanon into Israel, and condemned the attack.

A Turkish Foreign Ministry statement did not say when the three were killed or why they had attempted to cross into Israel.

“We condemn in the strongest terms this unlawful attack that resulted in the death of our citizens,” the Ministry said in a statement. “Israel must immediately end its aggressive policies that disregard human life and escalate tensions in our region."

Procedures to repatriate the bodies back to Turkey were underway, the ministry said.

The Israeli military did not immediately offer comment on the killings.

Israeli forces control territory inside Lebanon along some parts of the border after fighting a war with the militant group Hezbollah, which ended in a ceasefire last year. Both sides have until Feb. 18 to pull all of their forces out of southern Lebanon.

Thousands more Palestinians return to northern Gaza

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — For a third straight day, thousands of Palestinians in southern Gaza trekked by foot, motorbike and animal-drawn carts back to their homes in the war-ravaged north after Israeli forces withdrew from the two main roads earlier this week.

The column of people stretched for miles along Gaza’s coastal road Wednesday. A group of young men pushed a motorcycle cart with a sputtering engine, weighed down by potato sacks that held whatever personal belongings they were able to bring.

Others dragged suitcases through the rubble-strewn sand and carried containers of food on their heads.

On Wednesday, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that over 376,000 Palestinians had reached northern Gaza from the south. Israeli forces withdrew Monday to let Palestinians head north in accordance with the 42-day ceasefire agreement that paused the Israel-Hamas war.

It was first time that many of these civilians who fled south in October 2023 — when Israel began its offensive in response to the militant group’s Oct. 7 attack — could return home. But their faces didn’t reflect enthusiasm: They were leaving one disaster zone for another.

Months of intensive Israeli bombardment, demolitions and gunbattles with Palestinian militants have laid waste to large swaths of northern Gaza.

“The most difficult day in my life was the day of the ceasefire,” said Suad Saleh, a frail-looking woman in a wheelchair who arrived Wednesday to the remnants of what was once her home in Gaza City. “On the day of the ceasefire I understood that my home was destroyed."

“Where will I return to? A tent,” she said. "From a tent to a tent.”

Hamas will release 3 Israelis and 5 Thais on Thursday, Israeli official says

JERUSALEM — An Israeli official said Wednesday that Hamas' next hostage release the following day will free three Israelis, including two women and an 80-year-old man, and five Thai nationals.

The official named the Israel women as Arbel Yehoud, 29, Agam Berger, 19, and the man as Gadi Moses. The official said the hostages’ families had approved publication of their names.

The official did not name the Thai nationals set to be freed Thursday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

A total of 33 hostages are set to be freed as part of the ceasefire’s initial six-week phase. In exchange, Israel is releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

Rock climbing? Indoor beach volleyball? Water parks? Arts and crafts? NewsdayTV's Elisa DiStefano and Newsday deputy lifestyle editor Meghan Giannotta have your look at ways to spend your winter break. Credit: Newsday/Howard Schnapp, Kendall Rodriguez; Gary Licker

Things to do now on LI Rock climbing? Indoor beach volleyball? Water parks? Arts and crafts? NewsdayTV's Elisa DiStefano and Newsday deputy lifestyle editor Meghan Giannotta have your look at ways to spend your winter break.

Rock climbing? Indoor beach volleyball? Water parks? Arts and crafts? NewsdayTV's Elisa DiStefano and Newsday deputy lifestyle editor Meghan Giannotta have your look at ways to spend your winter break. Credit: Newsday/Howard Schnapp, Kendall Rodriguez; Gary Licker

Things to do now on LI Rock climbing? Indoor beach volleyball? Water parks? Arts and crafts? NewsdayTV's Elisa DiStefano and Newsday deputy lifestyle editor Meghan Giannotta have your look at ways to spend your winter break.

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