Middle East

Australia is preparing military contingency plans to deploy troops to the Middle East, but Defence Minister Pat Conroy says no request has been made by the Trump Administration yet.

US President Donald Trump has been forced to clarify that the US military would not be the ones enforcing his earlier threat regarding Hamas’s internal violence. 

Both nations announced the ceasefire after a week of deadly clashes along their border and strikes on the Afghan capital threatened to spill into a broader conflict.

Hamas has returned two more hostage bodies and admitted they can’t locate more, as US President Donald Trump warns Hamas will be ‘straightened out quickly’ if it fails to honour the Gaza ceasefire.

The IDF said examinations conducted by Israel’s national forensic medicine institute found the body did not match any of the hostages.

JENI O’DOWD: Years ago, the so-called ISIS brides walked away from Australia, pledging allegiance to a barbaric movement that beheads innocent people and is at war with everything we stand for.

The cease-fire talks in Egypt showed that with pressure on Hamas and Israel, seemingly huge impediments could be overcome or set aside.

AARON PATRICK: The ceasefire in Gaza has left Hamas free to hunt down and murder its opponents.

After more than two years of being held captive in Gaza, the returned Israeli hostages have shared chilling stories from their time with Hamas.

A deeply distressing video showing Hamas gunmen executing alleged collaborators in Gaza has cast doubt over Donald Trump’s new ceasefire plan. WARNING: Graphic content

Four more Israeli hostage’s bodies have been returned, as US President Donald Trump warns Hamas they will be disarmed if they fail to do so themselves.

DVIR ABRAMOVICH: A people who had dwelt in fear stepped, trembling, into light. The long night that began on October 7, 2023 was finally broken, its darkness yielding to dawn.

AARON PATRICK: Designated prisoner number 22, Elkana Bohbot slept on a mouldy mattress in a tunnel barely big enough stand. Hamas used him in its propaganda war against the Netanyahu government.

Amazon has sacked a Palestinian software engineer who protested its Israeli government contract, following similar tensions across Google and Microsoft.

SARAH STINSON: Every morning Viki Cohen woke not knowing what - or if - her hostage son Nimrod had eaten, if he was warm, if he was scared, if he was safe. But she refused to give up.