Updates: Hamas-Israel ceasefire holds

Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty on Saturday urged the rapid deployment of an international ceasefire monitoring force under the second phase of a peace deal for the Gaza Strip.

"As for the International Stabilisation Force, we need to deploy this force as soon as possible on the ground because one party, which is Israel, is every day violating the ceasefire [...] so we need monitors," the minister said.

He warned that Egypt’s Rafah crossing into Gaza "is not going to be a gateway for displacement. It’s only for flooding Gaza with humanitarian and medical care".

The nearly two-month-old ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will not be complete until Israeli troops withdraw from the Palestinian territory under a peace plan backed by Washington and the UN, mediator Qatar's prime minister said.

"Now we are at the critical moment... We cannot consider it yet a ceasefire, a ceasefire cannot be completed unless there is a full withdrawal of the Israeli forces, (and) there is stability back in Gaza," Qatari premier Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told the Doha Forum, an annual diplomatic conference in the Gulf state's capital.

The 23rd edition of the Doha Forum has kicked off in Qatar’s capital with the participation of world leaders, high-level diplomats and business executives

The presidents of Syria and Ghana, the prime ministers of Qatar and Lebanon, and the Turkish foreign minister are among the dozens of speakers at the annual platform for international dialogue.

This year’s edition is held under the theme “Justice in Action: Beyond Promises to Progress”. About 6,000 people from more than 150 countries are expected to attend the event.

The foreign ministers of Muslim and Arab countries express their deep concern regarding the Israeli statements concerning the opening of the Rafah Crossing in one direction, with the aim of transferring residents of the Gaza Strip into the Arab Republic of Egypt.

The foreign ministers of Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Indonesia, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar issued a joint statement on Friday, underscoring their absolute rejection of any attempts to expel the Palestinian people from their land.

They stressed the necessity of the full adherence to the plan proposed by US President Donald Trump, including its provisions on keeping the Rafah Crossing open in both directions, ensuring the freedom of movement for the population, and refraining from compelling any resident of the Gaza Strip to leave, rather to create the right conditions for them to stay on their land and participate in building their homeland, within a comprehensive vision aimed at restoring stability and improving their humanitarian conditions.

The Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry said that Israeli forces killed a man in the northern occupied West Bank on Friday.

"Bahaa Abdel-Rahman Rashid (38 years old) was killed by Israeli fire in the town of Odala, south of Nablus," the health ministry said in a statement.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said soldiers operating in the Odala area opened fire and hit one person after "a violent confrontation occurred in which terrorists hurled rocks" in the troops’ direction.

It told AFP that Rashid was not among the six individuals killed over the past two weeks.

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem on Friday said his group supported the Lebanese state's pursuit of diplomacy to end Israeli attacks, while also criticising the inclusion of a civilian representative in recent talks with Israel.

The state has chosen "diplomacy to end the aggression and implement" the ceasefire deal "and we support it continuing in this direction", Qassem said in a televised address, but added it was a "misstep" to have appointed a civilian to a ceasefire monitoring committee.

Lebanese and Israeli civilian representatives held their first direct talks in decades on Wednesday under the auspices of the year-old ceasefire monitoring mechanism, a move Lebanon’s president said was to avoid prospects of another war in Lebanon.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said on Friday that ceasefire talks with Israel are primarily aimed at stopping Israeli hostilities on Lebanese territory, after the Israeli prime minister's office said the country seeks economic cooperation with its long-time foe.

Germany's opposition party Die Linke (The Left) has censured Chancellor Friedrich Merz for his upcoming visit to Israel this weekend, Al Jazeera reported.

"Merz’s trip to Israel is a declaration of war on international law. He is meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu even though there is an international arrest warrant against him for alleged war crimes. A meeting with an alleged war criminal is not a normal state visit," said party's co-chair Jan van Aken.

The politician further termed the resumption of arms supply to Israel as a "political scandal" and said that no weapons should be provided to Tel Aviv as long as it does not publicly back a separate Palestinian state.