ARAB states will meet in Riyadh today to discuss joint opposition to US President Donald Trump’s plan to expel all Palestinians from Gaza.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman invited the Gulf states, Egypt and Jordan to the informal meeting, which will lay the groundwork for an emergency Arab League summit in Egypt on March 4.

Israel is beginning negotiations on a second phase of the Gaza ceasefire this week, but its army has escalated violence in the West Bank, with Palestinian authorities reporting it had killed three people in a house in the Far’a refugee camp on Wednesday. Its troops also shot one man dead in Gaza City, claiming he had posed an “immediate threat.”

The Israeli Defence Forces say they are rooting out terrorists in raids on West Bank camps, but thousands of civilians have been ordered to leave their homes and bulldozers have been brought in to demolish houses, while troops destroy water and power supply networks. Eighty-five per cent of the population of the Tulkarem refugee camp has been forced out, with residents saying troops’ behaviour in the occupied territory echoes that in Gaza, deemed genocide by human rights organisations Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Israeli settlers were reported to have stormed the biggest archaeological site in the West Bank, located in the village of Sebastia, which attracts pilgrims as it is held to be the burial place of Saint John the Baptist. 

Ongoing hostage exchanges took a sombre turn today as Hamas handed over four coffins containing Israelis kidnapped during its October 7 2023 attack, including three members of the Bibas family, mother Shiri and her two children, aged four and nine months. Their father was released alive earlier this month. The fourth coffin held an elderly man called Oded Lifshitz.

Hamas says the four were killed along with their guards by an Israeli air strike. Eight of the 33 hostages agreed to be returned in phase 1 of the truce are dead and next week’s scheduled handover of the last four, following the release of another six living hostages on Saturday, will mark the last stage of phase 1.