Updates: Hamas-Israel ceasefire holds

US President Donald Trump said nothing definitive was decided during his "very good" meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday but that negotiations with Iran toward a deal would continue.

"There was nothing definitive reached other than I insisted that negotiations with Iran continue to see whether or not a Deal can be consummated," Trump posted on Truth Social.

"Additionally, we discussed the tremendous progress being made in Gaza, and the Region in general."

Israeli settlers demolished around 15 Palestinian homes and an animal pen in a village near Jericho in the occupied West Bank, residents and activists told AFP on Wednesday.

The structures, several of them tin shacks, were torn down in Al-Duyuk Al-Tahta the day before, amid rising settler violence that has repeatedly forced families to flee.

The latest violence came days after Israel's security cabinet approved measures to tighten control over the West Bank, paving the way for further settlement expansion.

"About 50 settlers arrived, forced everyone out of the houses and began demolishing them. Then they took everything -- even the chickens," village resident Mustafa Kaabneh, who has lived in the area for nearly two decades, told AFP.

He said most of the settlers were armed and masked and were accompanied by an Israeli army vehicle before returning with a bulldozer.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment.

Another resident, Bassem Kaabneh, 23, said settlers beat women and children, expelled families from their homes and seized personal belongings.

"They told me: 'Enough, you don't have a home here anymore'".

Abu Audi Al-Rajabi, who owns one of the demolished houses, said no demolition order had been issued.

"The house was built 13 years ago and has been lived in ever since," he said.

Rajabi, who primarily resides in Jerusalem, said he was unable to reach the area because it had been sealed off.

Local activist Jihad Mahaless said the demolished homes lie in Area C, a part of the West Bank that under the Oslo Accords signed in the 1990s falls under full Israeli control.

He said five of the structures were made of stone, while the rest were tin homes and animal shelters.

"We are now living under the trees," Bassem Kaabneh said.

Poland and Italy will not join US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace, Warsaw and Rome have said, adding to the list of Washington's allies remaining on the sidelines.

Initially designed to cement Gaza's ceasefire, Trump sees the Board of Peace taking a wider role in resolving global conflicts which some countries fear means it could become a rival to the United Nations.

This along with the fact that Russia and Belarus were invited to join means many Western countries have taken a cautious approach.

"Taking into account certain national doubts regarding the shape of the board, under these circumstances Poland will not join the work of the Board of Peace, but we will analyse it," Prime Minister Donald Tusk told a government meeting.

"Our relations with the United States have been and will remain our priority, so if the circumstances change that will enable joining the work of the Board, we do not rule out any scenario."

Meanwhile, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani also confirmed that Italy would not sign up.

"We cannot join the Board of Peace because there is an insurmountable constitutional barrier on Italy's side," he said.

"However, if we need to work on reconstruction efforts aimed at ensuring peace in the Middle East, we are ready to do so," he added.

Al Jazeera reported that Israeli gunfire in southern Gaza injured a Palestinian child in the Batn as-Sameen area, south of Khan Younis.

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."