President Donald Trump said Palestinians would have no right to return to Gaza under his US takeover plan, describing his proposal in excerpts of an interview released yesterday as a “real estate development for the future.”

A Hamas official said Israeli troops completed their withdrawal yesterday from a strategic road cutting through the Gaza Strip, part of a fragile truce deal that Israel said it was implementing.

Israel and Hamas completed their fifth hostage-prisoner swap under a fragile Gaza ceasefire deal yesterday, with the frail, disoriented appearance of the three freed Israelis sparking dismay among their relatives.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Saudi Arabia had enough land to provide the Palestinians with a state.

Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said yesterday that there should not be negotiations with the United States, days after US President Donald Trump called for a new nuclear deal.

US President Donald Trump’s plan to take over Gaza will imperil attempts to forge landmark ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel and fuel anti-American sentiment in the oil-rich kingdom, analysts said.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards yesterday unveiled the country’s first drone carrier in Gulf waters, state media reported.

An overnight raid on a police checkpoint claimed by the Pakistani Taliban killed two officers, police said yesterday, while one more remains missing after being abducted in the northwest.

US President Donald Trump said yesterday that Israel would hand over Gaza to the United States after fighting was over and the enclave’s population was already resettled elsewhere, which he said meant no US troops would be needed on the ground.

Palestinian group Hamas yesterday lashed out at President Donald Trump’s shock proposal for the United States to take over the Gaza Strip and resettle its people in other countries, seemingly whether they want to leave or not.

The Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank is heading in a “catastrophic direction”, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said yesterday, after a new Israeli military operation levelled several buildings.

The office of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas denounced an Israeli operation in the occupied West Bank as ethnic cleansing yesterday, urging the United States to intervene.

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.

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

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.

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”.