Updates: Hamas-Israel ceasefire holds

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that an announcement about which world leaders will serve on the Gaza Board of Peace should be made early next year.

Trump told reporters during an economic event in the White House Roosevelt Room that a variety of leaders want to be on the board, which was established under a Gaza plan that set up a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

A top Hamas leader told Qatari news channel Al Jazeera on Wednesday that the Palestinian resistance group is open to a weapons "freeze", but rejects the demand for disarmament put forward in the US-sponsored peace plan for Gaza.

"The idea of total disarmament is unacceptable to the resistance (Hamas). What is being proposed is a freeze, or storage (of weapons)... to provide guarantees against any military escalation from Gaza with the Israeli occupation," said Khaled Meshaal in an interview aired Wednesday.

"Disarmament for a Palestinian means stripping away his very soul," Meshaal added. The former Hamas chief said the group was open to an international peacekeeping force along Gaza's border with Israel, but would not agree to it operating inside the Palestinian territory, calling such a plan an "occupation".

Israel reopened the only crossing on the border it controls between Jordan and the occupied West Bank on Wednesday to aid trucks for Gaza after nearly three months of closure, Israeli and Palestinian officials told AFP.

Israel closed the crossing after a Jordanian truck driver shot dead an Israeli soldier and a reserve officer at the border in September.

The crossing in the Jordan Valley reopened to travellers a few days later, but not to humanitarian aid destined for the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by more than two years of war.

"The Allenby crossing was open today and trucks are going from the Allenby crossing to Gaza," said a spokesperson for COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body that oversees civilian affairs in the Palestinian Territories.

A Palestinian official speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed that the crossing had been opened.

On Tuesday 96 trucks carrying materials for the production of cement were allowed to pass through the crossing, the official said.

On Wednesday a further 20 trucks of humanitarian aid entered, and on Thursday sand was expected to be allowed in for the construction sector, the official added.

Since the crossing's closure, Jordan said it had been able to send some aid to Gaza via the Sheikh Hussein crossing, located north of the occupied West Bank.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon said that Israeli forces fired on its peacekeepers a day earlier in the country's south, urging Israel's army to "cease aggressive behaviour".

"Yesterday, peacekeepers in vehicles patrolling the Blue Line were fired upon by IDF (Israeli army) soldiers in a Merkava tank," a Unifil statement said, referring to the de facto border.

"One ten-round burst of machine-gun fire was fired above the convoy, and four further ten-round bursts were fired nearby," the statement said.

It said that both the peacekeepers and the Israeli tank were in Lebanese territory at the time of the incident and that the Israeli military had been informed of the location and timing of the peacekeeping patrol in advance.

"Peacekeepers asked the IDF to stop firing through UNIFIL´s liaison channels... Fortunately, no one was injured," it said.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk warned that last month’s ceasefire in Gaza has failed to translate into meaningful protection for Palestinian civilians, saying the besieged enclave remains "a place of unimaginable suffering, loss and fear."

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Turk said that although the level of bloodshed has declined, it “has not stopped,” noting that Israeli attacks continue, including strikes on civilians approaching the “yellow line,” as well as on residential buildings, shelters for internally displaced persons (IDPs), and other civilian infrastructure.

The UN rights chief further cautioned that “unprecedented” levels of violence are unfolding in the occupied West Bank, where both Israeli military operations and settler assaults have escalated sharply.

“This is a time to intensify pressure and advocacy — not to sink into complacency — for Palestinians across the occupied territory,” he said.

Hamas condemned Israel’s decision to approve more than 760 additional settlement units in the occupied West Bank, calling the move a fresh attempt to cement control over Palestinian territory in violation of international law.

In a statement, the Palestinian group said the latest authorisation, along with earlier expansions, represented a "dangerous escalation" and reflected Israel’s policy of "creeping annexation" and systematic land seizure.

Hamas added that the settlement push aimed to advance a project of forced displacement and the removal of the indigenous Palestinian population, warning that such actions further entrench occupation and undermine prospects for peace.

Israel has given final approval for 764 housing units to be built in three illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said.

The far-right politician, who acts as de facto governor of the West Bank and opposes the creation of a Palestinian state, said he will “continue the revolution”.

He said that since he came to power in late 2022, some 51,370 housing units have been approved in the West Bank to curtail future Palestinian statehood.

The Israeli Broadcasting Authority said a review of state documents and leaks has revealed what it described as “historic” transformations in the West Bank under Smotrich, with record numbers of Palestinians driven from their land and homes, which are subsequently transferred to Israeli state control and turned into settlements.

The body of the last Thai national held hostage in Gaza since the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel was returned home on Wednesday, Thailand's foreign ministry said.

The remains of Sudthisak Rinthalak arrived at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport from Tel Aviv, ministry official Jeerasak Pomsuwan told AFP, more than two years after the attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Sudthisak was 43 and working in agriculture in southern Israel when he was killed on the day of the Hamas attack. His body was then taken to the Gaza Strip and held there throughout the ensuing war.

While Hamas released the living hostages it held in Gaza as part of a ceasefire deal with Israel, the process of returning the remains of deceased captives has dragged on.