Updates: Hamas-Israel ceasefire holds

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar will attend US President Donald Trump's first formal Board of Peace meeting on February 19, two Israeli officials said.

US officials told Reuters this week that Trump will announce a multi-billion dollar reconstruction plan for Gaza and detail plans for a UN-authorised stabilisation force for the Palestinian enclave at the meeting in Washington.

The US officials said the meeting will focus on Gaza, where two years of war have left much of the Palestinian enclave in ruins.

Medecins Sans Frontieres has halted "non-critical" medical activities at a major hospital in southern Gaza following reports from patients and its own staff of armed men inside the facility and concerns over the movement of weapons within it.

The Geneva-based medical charity said non-essential operations at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis were suspended on January 20 over concerns with the "management of the structure, the safeguarding of its neutrality, and security breaches."

In recent months, patients and personnel had "seen armed men, some masked," in areas of the hospital compound, MSF said.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas called for the removal of "all obstacles", he said Israel has imposed on implementing phase two of the Gaza ceasefire, in a speech at an African Union summit in Ethiopia.

"We emphasise the need to lift all obstacles imposed by the Israeli occupation on the implementation of the provisions related to the second phase of the agreement," Abbas said, in a speech read by his prime minister, Mohammed Mustafa.

Removal of the obstacles was needed to "ensure continuity of services, coordinate humanitarian efforts and enable a swift recovery", the president said.

"From the announcement of the ceasefire until today, more than 500 Palestinians have been killed (in Gaza), which threatens the durability of the truce and the full implementation of its second phase," he added.

From a small studio in the central city of Deir el-Balah, Sylvia Hassan's voice echoes across the Gaza Strip, broadcast on one of the Palestinian territory's first radio stations to hit the airwaves after two years of war.

Hassan, a radio host on fledgling station "Here Gaza", delivers her broadcast from a well-lit room, as members of the technical team check levels and mix backing tracks on a sound deck.

"This radio station was a dream we worked to achieve for many long months and sometimes without sleep," Hassan told AFP.

"It was a challenge for us, and a story of resilience."

Hassan said the station would focus on social issues and the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which remains grave in the territory despite a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas since October.

"The radio station's goal is to be the voice of the people in the Gaza Strip and to express their problems and suffering, especially after the war," said Shereen Khalifa, part of the broadcasting team.

The station's launch is funded by the European Union and overseen by Filastiniyat, an organisation that supports Palestinian women journalists, and the media centre at the An-Najah National University in Nablus, in the occupied West Bank.

The station is planning to broadcast for two hours per day from Gaza and longer from Nablus. It is available on FM and online.

Khalifa said that stable internet access had been one of the biggest obstacles in setting up the station, but that it was now able to broadcast uninterrupted sound.

Ahead of Thursday’s US-led 'Board of Peace' meeting, Palestinian resistance group Hamas has spelt out its conditions for any international peace force being sent to the Gaza Strip, according to Arab media.

The meeting will discuss an interim government in Palestine, Hamas, and the possibility of a permanent ceasefire. Issues related to the global peace force are also on the agenda.

Hamas said the force should stay at the border and not interfere in Palestinian civil, political, or security matters. “We have no objection if the international force acts as a protective layer between the parties,” a Hamas spokesperson, Basim Naeem, said.

He added that any interference in Palestinian internal affairs would be unacceptable and warned that Palestinians would view such action as an occupying force. Hamas stressed that the international mission’s role should be limited to keeping parties apart and maintaining a ceasefire.

Indonesia has reportedly offered to send 8,000 personnel for the Gaza peace force.

At least 54 Palestinians were injured after Israeli settlers launched a series of attacks across the occupied West Bank on Friday, Al Jazeera reported.

According to the report, settlers targeted multiple towns and villages, assaulting residents and damaging property, allegedly under the protection of Israeli forces.

In Talfit, south of Nablus, settlers attacked Palestinian farmers on their land, while Israeli troops fired tear gas and live ammunition at residents who attempted to push them back. Images from the area showed shattered windows and vehicles with smashed windshields.

Separately, about 300 olive trees were uprooted near the town of Turmus Aya in the Ramallah area, the Palestinian news agency Wafa said, citing local sources.

Violence by Israeli settlers and military forces has intensified across the West Bank amid Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, the report added.

Indian writer Arundhati Roy said she was cancelling her planned participation in the Berlin Film Festival over comments from jury president Wim Wenders that the festival had to "stay out of politics".

The Booker Prize-winning author said in a statement sent to AFP that she was "shocked and disgusted" by the celebrated German director’s response to a question on Gaza at a press conference on Thursday, adding: "With deep regret, I must say that I will not be attending the Berlinale."

Israeli court has rejected a petition seeking life-saving treatment for a five- year-old Palestinian boy suffering from aggressive cancer disease, Al Jazeera reported, citing Israel’s Haaretz newspaper.

It said the petition sought to facilitate the transfer of the boy, who lives in Ramallah, to Tel Hashomer Hospital near Tel Aviv for treatment.

“I have lost my last hope,” the boy’s mother, whose father died of cancer three years ago, told Haaretz.

The Palestinian resistance group has condemned the attack of Israeli settlers on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, declaring them “gangs and the fascist occupation army”, Al Jazeera reported.

The settlers' attacks across the West Bank wounded at least 54 Palestinians today.

“The government of war criminal Netanyahu is systematically implementing a policy of ethnic cleansing against our Palestinian people, by giving free rein to heavily armed settlers, protected by the occupation army, to wreak havoc in the cities, villages, and camps of the occupied West Bank,” it said in a statement.

Britain's ban on pro-Palestinian campaign group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation was ruled unlawful by London's High Court on Friday, though the ban will temporarily remain in place and the government said it would appeal against the decision.

Giving a summary of the court's ruling, Judge Victoria Sharp said that "Palestine Action is a group that promotes its political cause through criminality and the encouragement of criminality".

But the High Court ruled the ban was a disproportionate interference with the right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.

The ban will remain in place pending any appeal, meaning expressing support is still a criminal offence and being a member carries a maximum 14-year prison sentence.

Interior minister Shabana Mahmood said in a statement: "I intend to fight this judgment in the Court of Appeal."