Updates: Hamas-Israel ceasefire holds

An Al Jazeera investigation has alleged that Israel used internationally banned thermal and thermobaric weapons in Gaza, leaving thousands of Palestinians effectively “evaporated” in the blasts.

According to the Arabic programme The Rest of the Story, Gaza’s civil defence teams have documented more than 2,800 cases since October 2023 in which people simply disappeared during Israeli strikes. In many instances, rescuers say there were no intact bodies left — only fragments of flesh, traces of blood, or ash.

Experts and testimonies cited in the report suggest that conventional explosives alone do not explain the scale of destruction. 

The investigation attributes the alleged vaporisation of victims to thermal and thermobaric weapons — also known as vacuum or aerosol bombs — which can generate temperatures exceeding 3,500 degrees Celsius (6,332 degrees Fahrenheit).

For comparison, water boils at just 100 degrees Celsius. Much of the intense heat from such weapons is produced by tritonal, a mixture of TNT and aluminium powder commonly used in US-made bombs.

Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence, said rescue teams compare the number of residents believed to be inside a building with the bodies recovered.

“If a family tells us there were five people inside and we recover only three intact bodies, we classify the other two as ‘evaporated’ after a thorough search finds nothing but biological traces — blood spray on walls or small fragments,” he said.

Munir al-Bursh, director general of Gaza’s Health Ministry, said the phenomenon is scientifically possible. “When a human body is exposed to extremely high temperatures, it can vaporise and turn to ash,” he explained.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday he had ordered two Palestinian citizens of Israel convicted on terror charges to be stripped of their citizenship and deported to areas under Palestinian control.

It is the first time such measures are being taken under a 2023 law, which allows for the revocation of Israeli citizenship or residence permits from perpetrators of anti-Israeli attacks whose families subsequently received compensation from the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.

"This morning I signed the revocation of citizenship and deportation of two Israeli terrorists who carried out stabbing and shooting attacks against Israeli civilians and were rewarded for their heinous acts by the Palestinian Authority," Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office.

"I thank Coalition Chairman Ofir Katz for leading the law that will expel them from the State of Israel, with many more like them to follow," it added.

The statement was released as Netanyahu was heading to Washington, where he will meet US President Donald Trump on Wednesday.

Israel violated the ceasefire agreement at least 1,620 times since its occurrence in October in Gaza, killing at least 573 people and wounding 1,553, Al Jazeera reported, citing the Gaza media office.

In a statement, the media office said 292 of those victims were children, women and the elderly.

Moreover, only 31,178 aid, commercial and fuel trucks have entered Gaza, in contrast to the 72,000 that were part of the agreement.

Israeli airstrikes and gunfire killed five Palestinians in Gaza on Tuesday, health officials said, the latest violence to undermine a four-month-old, US-brokered truce in the enclave.

In Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza, an airstrike killed two people who were riding an electric bike, medics said. Later, Israeli drone fire killed a woman in Deir Al-Balah and troops shot dead a man in Khan Younis in the south, they said.

Another man was killed by Israeli gunfire in Jabalia in north Gaza, Palestinian medics said.

Without commenting directly on the four people killed on Tuesday, the Israeli military said it had carried out attacks targeting what it described as Hamas members in response to Monday's incident in Rafah.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he will meet US President Donald Trump on Wednesday to discuss the Gaza conflict and the ongoing missile negotiations with Iran.

The two leaders are set to meet in Washington on Wednesday, their sixth such encounter in the United States since Trump returned to office a year ago.

"On this trip, we will discuss a range of issues: Gaza, the region, but of course first and foremost the negotiations with Iran," Netanyahu said, in a video statement before his departure.

"I will present to the president our views regarding the principles for the negotiations."

JAKARTA: A proposed multinational peacekeeping force for Gaza could total about 20,000 troops, with Indonesia estimating it could contribute up to 8,000, said President Prabowo Subianto's spokesman.

The spokesman said, however, that no deployment terms or areas of operation had been agreed.

Prabowo has been invited to Washington later this month for the first meeting of US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace.

The Southeast Asian country last year committed to ready 20,000 troops for deployment for a Gaza peacekeeping force, but it has said it is awaiting more details about the force's mandate before confirming deployment.

"The total number is approximately 20,000 [across countries] ... it is not only Indonesia," presidential spokesman Prasetyo Hadi told journalists, adding that the exact number of troops had not been discussed yet but Indonesia estimated it could offer up to 8,000.

"We are just preparing ourselves in case an agreement is reached and we have to send peacekeeping forces," he said.

Separately, Indonesia's defence ministry also denied reports in Israeli media that the deployment of Indonesian troops would be in Gaza's Rafah and Khan Younis.

"Operational matters [deployment location, number of personnel, schedule, mechanism] have not yet been finalised and will be announced once an official decision has been made and the necessary international mandate has been clarified," he added.

A White House official reiterated US President Donald Trump's opposition toward Israel annexing the West Bank.

"A stable West Bank keeps Israel secure and is in line with this administration’s goal to achieve peace in the region," the official said.

An immigration judge has rejected the Trump administration's efforts to deport Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was arrested last year as part of its targeting of pro-Palestinian campus activists, her lawyers said on Monday.

Lawyers for the Turkish student detailed the immigration judge's decision in a filing with the New York-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals, which had been reviewing a ruling that led to her release from immigration custody in May.

An immigration judge on January 29 concluded the US Department of Homeland Security had not met its burden of proving she was removable and terminated the proceedings against her, her lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union wrote.

Her immigration lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai, said the decision was issued by Immigration Judge Roopal Patel in Boston.

That ended, for now, proceedings that began with Ozturk's arrest by immigration authorities in March on a street in Massachusetts after the US Department of State revoked her student visa.

The sole basis authorities provided for revoking her visa was an editorial she co-authored in Tufts' student newspaper a year earlier criticizing her school's response to Israel's war in Gaza.

"Today, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that despite the justice system's flaws, my case may give hope to those who have also been wronged by the U.S. government," Ozturk said in a statement.