Israel-Gaza ceasefire latest: 10 Palestinians killed in West Bank raid as top Israeli general resigns

We are pausing our live coverage of the developments in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

Before we do, here are the latest developments in the region from the past 24 hours:

• Details emerged of a settler attack on Palestinian villages in the West Bank. Palestinian medics say 12 were injured, while local officials said houses, shops, nurseries and cars were attacked and burned.
• The casualty toll in a raid by Israeli forces on Jenin in the West Bank has reached at least 10, with 40 wounded.
• In Tel Aviv, four people were injured following a stabbing by a “foreign national”, which authorities believe was a terrorist attack.
• Israel has been accused of breaching the ceasefire, with Palestinian news outlets reporting a 15-year-old boy is among those shot and injured in Gaza since the ceasefire came into effect.
• Israel’s top general, Lt General Herzi Halevi, has stepped down citing the failures which allowed the October 7 attack to take place.

Iran must commit to not developing nuclear weapons, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday.

The country must make a first step towards improving relations in the Middle East and with United States by making clear there are no plans for further nuclear development, he said.

“The most relevant question is Iran and relations between Iran, Israel and the United States,” Mr Guterres said at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“Here my hope is that the Iranians understand that it is important to once and for all make it clear that they will renounce to have nuclear weapons, at the same time that they engage constructively with the other countries of the region.”

Israel’s top general has announced his resignation over the security failures that allowed Hamas to attack southern Israel on 7 October 2023 – saying he will stand down in March.

Lt General Herzi Halevi, the Israeli armed forces chief of staff, is the most prominent Israeli official to resign over the attack. The move comes just days into a fragile ceasefire in the Gaza war that was triggered by the attack, during which around 1,200 people were killed and another 250 people taken hostage. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed 47,000 Palestinians according to the enclave’s health ministry and forced 90 per cent of its 2.3 million residents from their homes.

As part of the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire, 33 of the hostages still held in the territory are due to be released, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli jails over the course of six weeks. The first three hostages were released over the weekend, alongside 90 prisoners. A Hamas official told AFP that four women will be released this coming weekend, without naming them.

Chief international correspondent Bel Trew and international editor Chris Stevenson report:

The prime minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, is set to meet with the boss of Israel’s intelligence agency to discuss the second phase of a hostage deal.

Qatar’s Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani will meet with Dedi Barnea of Mossad later this week, journalist Barak Ravid reported in Walla News.

The hostage deal requires negotiations on the second phase of the deal to begin on the 16th day of the ceasefire. Mr Thani is interested in beginning negiations before, Walla reported.

Within four weeks, the parties must have an agreement on the release of men under the age of 50 held by Hamas, in exchange for the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a permanent ceasefire.

Earlier, we reported that dozens of masked men believed to be Israeli settlers had marauded through at least two Palestinian villages in the Israeli-occupied West Bank late on Monday, attacking residents and terrorising neighbourhoods.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said it had treated 12 people who had been beaten by the men in the northern West Bank villages. The Israeli military said the men threw rocks at soldiers who arrived to disperse them and that an investigation had been launched.

Jalal Bashir, the head of Jinsafut’s village council, said three houses, a nursery and a carpentry shop had been attacked.

"The settlers were masked and had incendiary materials," said Bashir. "Their numbers were large and unprecedented."

Louay Tayem, head of the local council in Al-Funduq, said dozens of men had fired shots, thrown stones, burned cars, and attacked homes and shops, the Associated Press reported.

Charred shells of cars littered the side of the road in Jinsafut on Tuesday, and residents were seen surveying the damage to a burned storage space.

The southeast Asian bloc ASEAN has welcomed a ceasefire in Gaza and called for its full implentation along with the release of all hostages, its chair Malaysia said.

“We also call for a full, safe, rapid, and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance for the Palestinians,” the bloc said in a statement released on Wednesday.

French investigating magistrates have issued an arrest warrant against deposed Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, on accusations of complicity in war crimes, a legal source said on Tuesday.

The mandate was issued on 20 January as part of an investigation into the case of Salah Abou Nabour, a Franco-Syrian national who was killed in a bombing raid in June 2017.

It is the second arrest warrant Assad faces in French courts, after he was charged in November 2023 for complicity in crimes against humanity and complicity in war crimes.

A French investigation into chemical attacks in Douma and Eastern Ghouta which killed more than 1,000 people in August 2013.

Assad’s government has denied using chemical weapons against its opponents in the civil war, which broke out in March 2011.

The former Syrian leader was overthrown in early December 2024 by insurgent forces led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).