Conflict

There have been conflicting reports on whether Israel would free the prominent Gaza medic as part of the truce agreement.

As Israeli and Palestinian captives return to their families as part of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, the status of many prominent Palestinian detainees remains uncertain.

Among them is Palestinian doctor Hussam Abu Safia, a hospital director in Gaza who was abducted by Israeli forces in December 2024 and has stayed in detention despite growing calls for his release and reports by his lawyer that he has been tortured in Israeli prison.

Many Palestinian rights supporters see Abu Safia as the embodiment of the resilience of Palestinian medics, as Israel systemically targeted Gaza’s health sector for more than two years.

It is unclear whether Abu Safia will be released as part of the ceasefire deal, which includes both Israelis held captive by Hamas in Gaza and Palestinians swept up in Gaza and imprisoned en masse by Israel, most without charge or trial.

But as of the end of Monday, the doctor has not been freed.

CNN reported over the weekend that Israel would not release Abu Safia, citing a source from Hamas. However, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Monday that Abu Safia was among five extra names added to the list of Palestinians from Gaza to be released.

The human rights watchdog Amnesty International says that the hospital director has been held without charge or trial under an Israeli security law after being arrested by Israeli forces at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, where he continued to work as a paediatrician after his son was killed in an Israeli air strike.

“Not until 11 February 2025 did Israeli authorities allow Dr Abu Safiya to meet with a legal counsel,” the group said in a petition calling for his release. “In the latest visit by a lawyer to Ofer military prison in early July 2025, she reported that Dr Hussam and other detainees were subjected to assault and beatings.”

Amnesty International noted that Abu Safia had also lost significant weight during his detention.

Palestinian detainees and rights groups have reported torture, sexual violence and other abusive conditions in Israeli captivity during the two-year war on Gaza. Many of those released on Monday show signs of abuse and significant weight loss.

“As we speak, Husam Abu Safiya is subjected to severe torture,” a Palestinian detainee told Al Jazeera upon his release in Khan Younis in Gaza.

Calls have grown in recent days, after the ceasefire deal was finalised, for Abu Safia’s release.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has urged United States President Donald Trump to push Israel to abide by the ceasefire deal.

“We also call on the President to demand that Israel release Dr Hussam Abu Safiya and all other kidnapped medical professionals.”

UN expert Francesca Albanese suggested on Friday that the lack of pressure to release civilian captives reflects the shortcomings of the ceasefire plan, which was put forward by Trump.

“There cannot be peace without justice, human rights and dignity of ALL. Palestinian lives matter,” Albanese wrote on X.

Joy turned to devastation for many after Israel added a twist to its release of almost 2,000 imprisoned Palestinians as part of the ceasefire deal. It’s sending 154 into exile, refusing to let them back into Gaza or the occupied West Bank.

US President Donald Trump has made a last-minute trip to the Middle East in the wake of the Gaza ceasefire deal. 

He landed in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh late on Monday after flying in from Israel, where he addressed the Israeli Knesset.

The first phase of Trump’s 20-point ceasefire plan has now been completed, with Hamas releasing all 20 living Israeli captives in Gaza and Israel freeing Palestinian prisoners in the occupied West Bank.

So will this deal finally bring peace to the region?

And what does Trump’s plan mean for the broader Middle East?

Presenter: Neave Barker

Guests:

Sarah Eltantawi – Professor at Fordham University in New York City; political analyst and writer

Yezid Sayigh – Senior fellow at the Malcolm H Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut

Kenneth Katzman – Senior fellow at The Soufan Center and former senior analyst with the US Congressional Research Service

Last week, a ceasefire was announced after two years of genocide in Gaza. The bombs have stopped falling, but the devastation remains. The majority of homes, schools, hospitals, universities, factories, and commercial buildings have been reduced to rubble. From above, Gaza looks like a grey desert of rubble, its vibrant urban spaces reduced to ghost towns, its lush agricultural land and greenery wiped out.

The occupier’s aim was not only to render the Palestinians of Gaza homeless but also unable to provide for themselves. Uprooting the dispossessed and impoverished, those who have lost their connection to the land, is of course much easier.

This was the goal when Israeli tanks and bulldozers entered my family’s plot of land in the eastern part of Maghazi refugee camp and uprooted 55 olive trees, 10 palms and five fig trees.

This plot of land was offered to my refugee grandfather, Ali Alsaloul, by its original owner as a place to shelter in during the Nakba of 1948. Ali, his wife, Ghalia, and their children had just fled their village, al-Maghar, as Zionist forces advanced on it. Al-Maghar, like Gaza today, was reduced to rubble; the Zionists who perpetrated the crime completed the erasure by establishing a national park on its ruins – “Mrar Hills National Park”.

Ali was a farmer and so were his ancestors; his livelihood had always come from the land. So when he settled in the new location, he was quick to plant it with olive trees, palms, figs and prickly pears. He built his house there and raised my father, uncles and aunts. My grandfather eventually bought the land from its generous owner, by paying in installments over many years. Thus, my family came into the possession of 2,000 square metres (half an acre) of land.

Although my father and his siblings married and moved out of their family home, this plot of land remained a favourite place to go, especially for me.

It was just two kilometres away from our house in Maghazi refugee camp. I enjoyed doing the 30-minute walk, part of which went through a complete “jungle”: a stretch of green populated with clover, sycamore, jujube and olive trees, colourful birds, foxes, leashed and unleashed dogs and many beehives.

Every autumn, in October, when the olive picking season began, my cousins, friends and I would gather to collect the olives. It was an occasion that brought us closer together. We would get the olives pressed and get 500 litres (130 gallons) of olive oil from the harvest. The figs and dates were made into jams to have for breakfast or for suhoor during Ramadan.

The rest of the year, I would often meet my friends Ibrahim and Mohammed between the olive trees. We would light a small fire and make a kettle of tea to enjoy under the moonlight, while we talked.

When the war started in 2023, our land became a dangerous place to go. The farms and olive groves around it were often bombed. Our plot was also hit twice at the beginning of the war. As a result, we could not harvest the olives in 2023 and then again in 2024.

When the famine took hold of Gaza in the summer, we started sneaking into the plot to get some fruit and some firewood for cooking, since a kilo of that cost $2. We knew that Israeli tanks might storm in at any moment, but we took the risk anyway.

Seven families – we, friends and neighbours – benefited from the fruit and wood of that land.

One day in late August, a friend of mine called me with a terrible rumour he had heard: the Israeli tanks and bulldozers had advanced into the eastern part of Maghazi and levelled it all, uprooting trees and burying them. I gasped; our lifeline was gone.

Days later, the rumour was confirmed. The Israeli army had uprooted more than 600 trees in the area, mostly olive trees. Those who had fled from the area shared what they had seen. What was once a lush green stretch of land had been bulldozed into a yellow, lifeless desert.

Earlier in August, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reported that 98.5 percent of Gaza’s agricultural land had been damaged or made inaccessible. I guess the destruction of our plot shrank that 1.5 percent remaining land even further.

As Israel was completing the erasure of Palestinian agricultural land, it started allowing commercial but not aid trucks into Gaza. The markets were flooded with products with packaging covered in Hebrew.

Israel was starving us, destroying our ability to grow our own food, and then making us buy their products at exorbitant prices.

Ninety percent of people in Gaza are unemployed and can’t afford to buy an Israeli egg for $5 or a kilo of dates for $13. It was yet another genocidal strategy that forced the two million starving Palestinians in Gaza to choose between two horrible options: dying from hunger or paying to support the Israeli economy.

Now, aid is finally supposed to start coming into Gaza under the ceasefire agreement. This may be a relief to many starving Palestinians, but it is not a solution. Israel has rendered us fully dependent on aid, and it is the sole power that determines if, when and how much of it enters Gaza. Per the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, 100 percent of Palestinians in Gaza experience some level of food insecurity.

Much of Gaza’s agricultural land remains out of reach, as Israel has withdrawn from just a part of the Gaza Strip. My family will have to wait for the implementation of the third phase of the ceasefire deal – if Israel agrees to implement it at all – to see the Israeli army withdraw to the buffer zone and regain access our land.

We have now lost our land twice. Once in 1948 and now again in 2025. Israel wants to repeat history and dispossess us again. It must not be allowed to convert more Palestinian land into buffer zones and national parks.

Getting back our land, rehabilitating and planting it is crucial not just for our survival, but also for maintaining our connection to the land. We must resist uprooting.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Renewed fighting between rival leaders forces mass exodus across South Sudan’s borders as fears of wider war rise.

About 300,000 people have fled South Sudan so far in 2025 as armed conflict between rival leaders threatens civil war, the United Nations warns.

The mass displacement was reported on Monday by the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan. The report cautioned that the conflict between President Salva Kiir and suspended First Vice President Riek Machar risks a return to full-scale war.

The commission’s report called for an urgent regional intervention to prevent the country from sliding towards such a tragic event.

South Sudan has been beset by political instability and ethnic violence since it gained independence from Sudan in 2011.

The country plunged into civil war in 2013 when Kiir dismissed Machar as vice president. The pair agreed a ceasefire in 2017, but their fragile power-sharing agreement has been unravelling for months and was suspended last month amid outbreaks of violence among forces loyal to each.

Machar was placed under house arrest in March after fighting between the military and an ethnic Nuer militia in the northeastern town of Nasir killed dozens of people and displaced more than 80,000.

He was charged with treason, murder and crimes against humanity in September although his lawyer argued the court lacked jurisdiction. Kiir suspended Machar from his position in early October.

Machar rejects the charges with his spokesman calling them a “political witch-hunt”.

Renewed clashes in South Sudan have driven almost 150,000 people to Sudan, where a civil war has raged for two years, and a similar number into neighbouring Uganda, Ethiopia and as far as Kenya.

More than 2.5 million South Sudanese refugees now live in neighbouring countries while two million remain internally displaced.

The commission linked the current crisis to corruption and lack of accountability among South Sudan’s leaders.

“The ongoing political crisis, increasing fighting and unchecked, systemic corruption are all symptoms of the failure of leadership,” Commissioner Barney Afako said.

“The crisis is the result of deliberate choices made by its leaders to put their interests above those of their people,” Commission Chairwoman Yasmin Sooka said.

A UN report in September detailed significant corruption, alleging that $1.7bn from an oil-for-roads programme remains unaccounted for while three-quarters of the country faces severe food shortages.

Commissioner Barney Afako warned that without immediate regional engagement, South Sudan risks catastrophic consequences.

“South Sudanese are looking to the African Union and the region to rescue them from a preventable fate,” he said.

Families of many of the Palestinian prisoners being released by Israel under an exchange deal say their long-awaited freedom is bittersweet after they learned their loved ones would be deported to third countries.

At least 154 Palestinian prisoners being freed on Monday as part of the swap for Israeli captives held in Gaza will be forced into exile by Israel, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office said.

Those to be deported are among a larger group of Palestinians being released by Israel – 250 people held in Israeli prisons along with about 1,700 Palestinians seized from the Gaza Strip during two years of Israel’s war, many of whom were “forcibly disappeared”, according to the United Nations. For its part, Hamas and other Palestinian groups released 20 Israeli captives under a Gaza ceasefire agreement.

There are no details yet about where the freed Palestinians will be sent, but in a previous prisoner release in January, dozens of detainees were deported to countries in the region, including Tunisia, Algeria and Turkiye.

Observers said the forced exile illegally breaches the citizenship rights of the released prisoners and is a demonstration of the double standards surrounding the exchange deals.

“It goes without saying it’s illegal,” Tamer Qarmout, associate professor in public policy at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera.

“It is illegal because these are citizens of Palestine. They have no other citizenships. They’re out of a small prison, but they’re sent to a bigger prison, away from their society, to new countries in which they will face major restrictions. It’s inhumane.”

Families shocked by deportations

Speaking to Al Jazeera in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, relatives of Palestinian prisoner Muhammad Imran said they were shocked to learn he was among those Israel had decided to force into exile.

Raed Imran said the family had previously received a call from an Israeli intelligence officer, confirming that his brother, 43, would be released home and asking where he would stay on his release.

But on Monday, the family was dismayed to learn that Muhammad, who was arrested in December 2022 and sentenced to 13 life terms, would be deported.

“Today’s news was a shock, but we are still waiting. Maybe we’ll get to see him somehow,” Imran said. “What matters is that he is released, here or abroad.”

The exile means his family might be unable to travel overseas to meet him due to Israel’s control of the borders.

“We might be looking at families who will be seeing their loved ones deported and exiled out of Palestine but have no way of seeing them,” said Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, who has reported extensively from the occupied West Bank.

‘A win-win for Israel’

According to Qarmout, the deportations are intended to deprive Hamas and other Palestinian groups of being able to claim any symbolic win from the exchange and to remove the deported prisoners from any involvement in political or other activities.

“Exile means the end of their political future,” he said. “In the countries they go to, they will face extreme constraints, so they will not be able to be active in any front related to the conflict.”

He said the deportations amounted to forcible displacement of the released prisoners and collective punishment for their families, who would either be separated from their exiled loved ones or forced to leave their homeland if they were permitted by Israel to travel to join them.

“It’s a win-win for Israel,” he said, contrasting their experiences to those of the released Israeli captives, who will be able to resume their lives in Israel.

“It’s more double standards and hypocrisy,” he said.

Additional reporting by Mosab Shawer in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank

Cheering broke out among in Tel Aviv it was announced that Hamas had released seven Israeli captives into the custody of the Red Cross, the first to be released as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal.

Families in Palestine and Israel await the return of their loved ones as the Israeli-Hamas truce continues to hold.

Israel says it expects to receive all its remaining living captives from Gaza early on Monday, a key step in the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas now in effect.

Speaking on Sunday, government spokeswoman Shosh Bedrosian said that Israel anticipates all 20 living captives will be returned together early on Monday.

As in previous exchanges during Israel’s two-year war on Gaza, the captives will first be handed over to the Red Cross, which will transport them to an Israeli military base inside Gaza for initial medical checks before they proceed to Israel to reunite with their families.

A Hamas source told Al Jazeera Arabic that the captives have been moved to three locations in the enclave ahead of their transfer to Red Cross officials.

Once Israel has confirmed all its captives are inside Israeli territory, it will begin releasing Palestinian prisoners, Bedrosian said.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, Israel is to release about 2,000 Palestinians it holds in detention, many without charge. The prisoners include 250 Palestinians serving life sentences. Imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti, whose release Palestinians have long sought, will not be among them, Israel has said.

Some detainees will be released in the occupied West Bank, where relatives have been instructed by Israel not to hold celebrations or speak to the media.

Israel is also preparing to receive the bodies of 28 captives confirmed to have died in captivity, according to Bedrosian.

Speaking in a televised address on Sunday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hoped the captives’ release would be a moment of unity for the country, despite controversy over his handling of the war.

“This is an emotional evening … because tomorrow, our children will return to our borders,” said Netanyahu, quoting a biblical verse. “Tomorrow is the beginning of a new path – a path of rebuilding, a path of healing and, I hope, a path of united hearts.”

Some of the families of captives have criticised Netanyahu for allegedly prioritising military victory over their release. On Saturday, when the US envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, praised Netanyahu’s leadership at a rally in Tel Aviv, many in the crowd booed.

‘Trump’s show’

The planned exchange comes three days after Israel’s government approved the first phase of a deal aimed at ending the war in Gaza, and just as United States President Donald Trump, who spearheaded the agreement, visits Israel before a summit in Egypt.

Trump left for Israel from the Joint Base Andrews near Washington on Sunday afternoon, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and CIA chief John Ratcliffe accompanying him on Air Force One.

“This is going to be a very special time,” said Trump on Sunday afternoon before boarding the flight. “Everybody’s cheering.”

On board Air Force One, the US president told reporters that the captives may be released “a little early”, that his relationship with Netanyahu was good, and that Qatar deserved credit for the role it had played in mediating the ceasefire.

“The war is over. You understand that,” Trump added.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent Nour Odeh, reporting from Amman, Jordan, because the network is banned in Israel, said: “It is Trump’s show.”

“He will be arriving in Israel, meeting with the families of captives, addressing the Knesset, and then going to Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh, where he has summoned the leaders of more than 20 countries.”

As part of the Trump-led ceasefire agreement, Israeli forces have withdrawn from parts of Gaza, including Gaza City and other northern areas, although they still control more than half of its territory.

Palestinians returning to the combat zones they were displaced from have found widespread devastation, or “wastelands” where their neighbourhoods once stood, Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim al-Khalili reported from Gaza City.

Humanitarian aid has begun to trickle into the enclave as part of the ceasefire, with dozens of trucks arriving on Sunday. But distribution remains slow for a population that has endured months of extreme deprivation, said Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary.

“People are not waiting only for food, but also for tents, mobile shelters, solar panels and desperately-needed medical equipment and medicines – items largely unavailable for the past two years,” Khoudary said from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza. “Most people have lost their savings, have no access to bank accounts, and are completely dependent on humanitarian aid to survive.”

Leaders to convene in Egypt

The Gaza summit, scheduled for Monday in Sharm el-Sheikh, will be co-chaired by Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

More than a dozen world leaders are expected to attend, including United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi said that neither he nor Iran’s president would accept an invitation to the summit because they could not “engage with counterparts who have attacked the Iranian People”, in reference to the US and its strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities earlier this year.

Although both Israel and Hamas said they would not participate, Cairo has hailed the summit as a “historic” event that will seek “to end the war in the Gaza Strip, enhance efforts to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East”.

Egypt said that a “document ending the war in the Gaza Strip” is also expected to be signed at the summit.

‘Hard work’ to come

Despite the ceasefire progress, many details on phase two of the deal, which is still to be negotiated, need to be ironed out, including the exact makeup of a post-war administration for Gaza and the fate of Hamas.

The second phase is expected to involve a phased Israeli withdrawal, Hamas’s disarmament, the establishment of new security and governance arrangements, and reconstruction.

“After the big day tomorrow for Trump, after the release of the hostages… then comes the hard work,” Adnan Hayajneh, professor of international relations at the University of Qatar, told Al Jazeera. “If you look at the situation in Gaza, it’s like an earthquake happened… There’s no government. There’s no schools. There’s nothing there.”

US Vice President JD Vance appeared to acknowledge on Sunday that the road to stability would be difficult. “It is going to take consistent leverage and consistent pressure from the president of the United States on down,” he told US broadcaster CBS.

In a separate interview with ABC, Vance said that the 200 US troops reportedly being sent to Israel to monitor the ceasefire are not intended to have a combat role and will not deploy to Palestinian territory.

“The idea that we’re going to have troops on the ground in Gaza, in Israel, that that is not our intention, that is not our plan,” said Vance.

Sources say the 28-year-old was killed by members of an Israel-linked ‘militia’ fighting Hamas in the Sabra neighbourhood.

Palestinian journalist Saleh Aljafarawi has been killed during clashes in Gaza City, just days after Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian sources told Al Jazeera Arabic that the 28-year-old, who had gained prominence for his videos covering the war, was shot and killed by members of an “armed militia” while covering clashes in the city’s Sabra neighbourhood.

Al Jazeera’s Sanad agency verified footage published by reporters and activists showing his body – in a “press” flak jacket – on what appeared to be the back of a truck. He had been missing since Sunday morning.

Palestinian sources said clashes were taking place between Hamas security forces and fighters from the Doghmush clan in Sabra on Sunday, although this has not been confirmed by local authorities.

A senior source in Gaza’s Ministry of Interior told Al Jazeera Arabic that the clashes in Gaza City involved “an armed militia affiliated with the [Israeli] occupation”.

The source said security forces imposed a siege on the militia, adding that “militia members” killed displaced people as they were returning from southern Gaza to Gaza City.

Despite the recent ceasefire, local authorities have repeatedly warned that the security situation in Gaza remains challenging.

‘I lived in fear for every second’

Speaking to Al Jazeera in January, several days before the start of a temporary ceasefire in the war at the time, Aljafarawi talked about his experiences being displaced from northern Gaza.

“All the scenes and situations I went through during these 467 days will not be erased from my memory. All the situations we faced, we will never be able to forget them,” Aljafarawi said.

The journalist added that he had received numerous threats from Israel due to his work.

“Honestly, I lived in fear for every second, especially after hearing what the Israeli occupation was saying about me. I was living life second to second, not knowing what the next second would bring,” he said.

In the deadliest-ever conflict for journalists, more than 270 media workers have now been killed in Gaza since the start of Israel’s war in October 2023.

Aljafarawi’s death comes as the current ceasefire in Gaza has held for a third day, ahead of an expected hostage-prisoner exchange.

United States President Donald Trump is set to gather with other world leaders on Monday in Egypt’s Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh for a Gaza summit co-hosted by Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

It aims “to end the war in the Gaza Strip, enhance efforts to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East, and usher in a new era of regional security and stability”, according to the Egyptian president’s office.

During the “historic” gathering, a “document ending the war in the Gaza Strip” is set to be signed, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said on Sunday. Neither Israel nor Hamas will have representatives at the talks.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians are held in Israeli jails – most of them without charge.

And as the ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel is centred on the release of detainees, about 2,000 of them are due to be released.

But the mistreatment of detainees by Israeli forces has been documented for decades.

So in addition to international law, is Israel breaking its own laws in its arrest and treatment of prisoners? Why did it arrest and torture so many people during its war on Gaza? And is it using mass detention to maintain its occupation?

Presenter: Neave Barker

Guests:

Naji Abbas – Director of the Prisoners & Detainees Department at Physicians for Human Rights-Israel

Ubai Aboudi – Executive director at Bisan Center for Research and Development, held in administrative detention in Israel without trial

Milena Ansari – Israel and Palestine assistant researcher at Human Rights Watch

Heavy fighting has broken out between Pakistani and Afghan forces at multiple locations on their border, and the rival sides claim to have captured and destroyed border posts in one of the worst border clashes in recent years.

The Taliban administration’s spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said at least 58 Pakistani soldiers were killed in “retaliatory” attacks on Saturday night, two days after blasts were reported in the capital, Kabul, and the southeastern province of Paktika.

The Pakistani military admitted 23 of its soldiers were ‘martyred’ while claiming to kill 200 Taliban and affiliated “terrorists”. Earlier, Pakistan’s interior minister called the Afghan attacks “unprovoked firing”.

The Taliban government has accused Pakistan of carrying out the recent bombings. Pakistan has neither confirmed nor denied the allegations.

Pakistan is said to have backed Taliban fighters during their rebellion against the United States-led occupation of Afghanistan and was one of only three countries that recognised the first Taliban government from 1996 to 2001.

But the rise of attacks inside Pakistan since the return of the Taliban to power in 2021 has strained their ties as Islamabad has accused the Taliban administration of providing safe haven to fighters from the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistan Taliban. Kabul has denied the allegations.

So what’s the latest on the fighting? What triggered the clashes? And is the situation expected to escalate further?

What’s the latest?

The Taliban attack on Pakistan border areas began about 10pm (17:00 GMT) on Saturday, and the exchange of fire took place at multiple locations.

Pakistani officials and state-run radio noted that those locations included Angoor Adda, Bajaur, Kurram, Dir and Chitral – all in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province – and Bahram Chah in Balochistan.

Mujahid said Afghan forces killed 58 Pakistani soldiers, captured 25 army posts and wounded 30 soldiers in their attacks.

“The situation on all official borders and de facto lines of Afghanistan is under complete control, and illegal activities have been largely prevented,” Mujahid said at a news conference in Kabul.

Afghanistan’s TOLOnews channel reported on Sunday that the Ministry of Defence is deploying tanks and heavy weapons in several areas of Kunar province on the 2,640km (1,640-mile) border, also referred to as the colonial-era Durand Line.

The Pakistani military on Sunday condemned what it called “the cowardly action” aimed at destabilising the border areas to facilitate terrorism”.

“Exercising the right of self-defence, the alert Armed Forces of Pakistan repelled the assault decisively,” the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media wing, said in a statement.

“Last night’s episode vindicates Pakistan’s long-standing position that the Taliban government is actively facilitating the terrorists,” ISPR said.

At least 29 soldiers were injured during the overnight skirmishes, it added.

The Pakistani military claimed that multiple Taliban locations were destroyed along the border and “21 hostile positions on the Afghan side of border were also briefly physically captured and multiple terrorist training camps, used to plan and facilitate attacks against Pakistan, were rendered inoperative”.

While the exchange of fire is mostly over, residents of Pakistan’s Kurram area reported intermittent gunfire.

What triggered the clashes?

On Thursday, Kabul was rocked by the sound of two explosions, and another took place in a civilian market in the border province of Paktika, the Taliban Defence Ministry said on Friday.

The Taliban government accused Pakistan of violating Afghanistan’s “sovereign territory”. Islamabad did not outright deny the blasts but asked the Taliban to curb the activities of the Pakistan Taliban.

A Pakistani security official told the Reuters news agency air strikes were carried out and their intended target in Kabul was the leader of the TTP, who was travelling in a vehicle.

Al Jazeera could not independently verify if the leader, Noor Wali Mehsud, had survived.

Pakistan and the Taliban, once allies over shared security interests, have grown increasingly hostile over Islamabad’s claim that the Taliban is giving refuge to the TTP, an armed group accused of carrying out years of attacks inside Pakistan.

At least 2,414 fatalities have been recorded in the first three quarters of this year, according to the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), an Islamabad-based think tank.

In its latest report issued last month, CRSS said that if the current trend continues, 2025 could be one of the deadliest years in Pakistan. Last year, at least 2,546 people were killed in attacks.

The armed attacks have risen following the ouster of former Prime Minister Imran Khan in April 2022. Khan’s government had involved the Taliban to get the TTP to agree to ceasefire deal. Though the ceasefire deal unraveled during Khan’s tenure, the frequency of attacks remained lower.

Ties have deteriorated as Islamabad has increased its use of air strikes inside Afghanistan to target hideouts it says are used by TTP fighters.

Relations have also soured over Pakistan’s decision to deport tens of thousands of Afghan refugees. At least 3 million Afghan refugees have taken shelter in Pakistan after fleeing decades of conflict.

What have both sides said?

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the Afghan attacks late on Saturday, adding that the country’s army “not only gave a befitting reply to Afghanistan’s provocations but also destroyed several of their posts, forcing them to retreat”.

Mohsin Naqvi, the interior minister, said the Afghan attacks were “unprovoked” and civilians were fired at. Strongly condemning the Taliban’s attacks, he said: “The firing by Afghan forces on civilian populations is a blatant violation of international laws.”

“Afghanistan is playing a game of fire and blood,” he said in a post on X.

Enayatullah Khowarazmi, spokesperson for Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defence, said its attacks on the Pakistan border posts were a retaliatory operation, adding that they concluded at midnight.

“If the opposing side again violates Afghanistan’s airspace, our armed forces are prepared to defend their airspace and will deliver a strong response,” Khowarazmi said.

What has been the international response to the clashes?

The escalating tensions have prompted regional concern as they come amid rapidly changing security dynamics and relations in South Asia.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called on his country’s two neighbours “to exercise restraint”.

“Our position is that both sides must exercise restraint,” Araghchi said during a live interview with state television, adding that “stability” between the countries “contributes to regional stability”.

Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also urged “both sides to prioritise dialogue and diplomacy, exercise restraint, and work to contain the disputes in a way that helps reduce tension, avoids escalation, and contributes to regional peace and stability”.

Expressing concern, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs said: “The kingdom calls for restraint, avoiding escalation, and embracing dialogue and wisdom to contribute to reducing tensions and maintaining security and stability in the region.”

“The kingdom affirms its support for all regional and international efforts aimed at promoting peace and stability and its continued commitment to ensuring security, which will achieve stability and prosperity for the brotherly Pakistani and Afghan peoples,” it added.

India, which is currently hosting Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi on his first visit there, has yet to comment on the border clashes. Islamabad has viewed New Delhi’s engagement with the Taliban with suspicion.

Could these clashes escalate?

Asif Durrani, a former Pakistani ambassador and special representative to Afghanistan, told Al Jazeera he believes “the chances of this clash [spilling over] to something bigger and more serious [are] minimal.”

“Afghanistan does not have any conventional military capacity when compared to Pakistan,” Durrani said, adding, “Guerrilla warfare is not the same as conventional warfare, which is a whole different beast and something where Pakistan is considerably ahead of Afghanistan.”

Underlining that “diplomacy should always be given a chance, regardless of how dire the situation is,” Durrani noted that the TTP remains the central issue in the countries’ fraught relations.

“The Afghan government refuses to acknowledge their [the TTP’s] existence on their soil, and as long as that irritant remains present, the situation will remain tense,” he added.

Abid Hussain reported from Islamabad

Taliban officials say overnight cross-border attacks resulted in killing of 58 Pakistani soldiers; Islamabad says 19 border posts captured.

Preparations are also under way for a Gaza summit in Egypt, with US President Donald Trump expected to attend.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians are streaming back to their land in northern Gaza – a right of return included in the ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel.

Multiple attempts to remove the population have failed.

Many Palestinians say they have avoided another Nakba, or catastrophe – the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 – and defeated Israel’s forced displacement policy.

But the land they are returning to is unrecognisable.

Is Gaza uninhabitable? Or can it be rebuilt under the interim authority that next governs the strip?

And does the ceasefire allow for this complex and lengthy task?

Presenter: Imran Khan

Guests:

Ines Abdel Razek – co-director of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy

Ilan Pappe – chairman of the Nakba Memorial Foundation

Ghada Karmi – academic and the author of Return: A Palestinian Memoir

UN special rapporteur on right to housing says Palestinians returning to destroyed northern Gaza face ‘profound trauma’.

Israel must allow tents and caravans to immediately be delivered to the Gaza Strip, a United Nations expert says, as displaced Palestinians returning to the north of the bombarded territory have found their homes and neighbourhoods destroyed.

Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, said people are finding nothing but rubble in areas from which Israeli forces have withdrawn in northern Gaza.

“The psychological impacts and trauma are profound, and that’s what we are seeing right now as people are returning to northern Gaza,” he told Al Jazeera in an interview on Saturday.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been streaming back into Gaza’s north after Israeli forces pulled back on Friday as part of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas to halt the two-year conflict.

Palestinians across the coastal enclave have welcomed the suspension of Israel’s bombardment, which has killed more than 67,700 people since October 2023 and plunged Gaza into a humanitarian crisis.

The UN estimated that 92 percent of all residential buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed since the war began, and hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have been forced to live in tents and other makeshift shelters.

Rajagopal noted that tents and caravans were meant to be delivered to Gaza during a ceasefire early this year but “almost none” of them was allowed in due to Israel’s strict blockade.

“That is really to me the crux of the issue right now. Even immediate relief and aid to the people of Gaza is not possible unless Israel stops controlling all the entry points. That is essential,” the UN expert told Al Jazeera.

Rajagopal, who has used the term “domicide” to describe the decimation of homes across the Strip, said the destruction of housing in Gaza has been a central component of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians.

“The destruction of homes and clearing people from the area and making the area uninhabitable is one of the main ways in which the act of genocide has been committed,” he said, adding that the recovery process will ultimately take generations.

“It’s like another Nakba,” he said, referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine when Israel was created in 1948. “What has happened in the last two years is going to be something similar.”

Allied forces launch joint patrols near Russia after reports of drone incursions into allied airspace.

The United Kingdom has said two Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft joined a 12-hour NATO patrol earlier this week near Russia’s border, following a series of Russian drone and aircraft incursions into alliance airspace.

“This was a substantial joint mission with our US and NATO allies,” Defence Minister John Healey said on Saturday, as concerns rise that Russia’s war in Ukraine will spill over into Europe.

“Not only does this provide valuable intelligence to boost the operational awareness of our Armed Forces, but sends a powerful message of NATO unity to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and our adversaries,” he added.

The mission involved an RC-135 Rivet Joint surveillance jet and a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft flying from the Arctic region past Belarus and Ukraine, supported by a US Air Force KC-135 refuelling plane.

British officials said the operation followed several incursions into the airspace of NATO members, including Poland, Romania, and Estonia.

Growing airspace tensions

In recent weeks, Poland and its allies have reinforced air defences amid increasing Russian drone activity. Earlier this month, Warsaw deployed additional systems along its border with Ukraine – which stretches about 530km (330 miles) – after unidentified drones briefly entered Polish airspace.

Poland temporarily closed part of its airspace southeast of Warsaw in late September during a major Russian assault across Ukraine. It was the second such incident this year, with Polish and NATO forces previously intercepting Russian drones that crossed the border – marking their first direct military engagement with Moscow since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022.

Elsewhere, airports in Germany, Denmark, Norway and Poland have at times also temporarily suspended flights due to sightings of unidentified drones. Romania and Estonia have directly accused Russia, which has dismissed the claims as “baseless”.

Putin has pledged a “significant” response to what he called “Europe’s militarisation”, rejecting suggestions that Moscow plans to attack NATO as “nonsense”.

“They can’t believe what they’re saying, that Russia is going to attack NATO,” he said on Thursday at a foreign policy forum in Sochi. “They’re either incredibly incompetent if they truly believe it because it’s impossible to believe this nonsense, or they’re simply dishonest.”

Putin said he was closely monitoring Europe’s military build-up and warned that Russia would not hesitate to respond. “In Germany, for example, it is said that the German army should become the strongest in Europe. Very well. We hear that and are watching to see what is meant by it,” he said. “Russia will never show weakness or indecisiveness. We simply cannot ignore what is happening.”

Relations between Moscow and the European Union have continued to deteriorate since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, driving the bloc to strengthen its collective defences amid fears the war could spill across NATO borders.

US President Donald Trump says Israeli captives held in Gaza will be released on Monday.