Three Israeli and five Thai hostages have been freed under a phased ceasefire deal that has halted fighting in Gaza.

But after a chaotic release that saw crowds swarm sections of the handover, Israel temporarily delayed the freeing of 110 Palestinians expected in exchange.

The first hostage, 20-year-old female Israeli soldier Agam Berger, was released in northern Gaza.

Hours later, footage from the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis showed a stunned and scared-looking Arbel Yehoud being led through a crowd, flanked by armed, masked Palestinian militants.

Gaza ceasefire latest

The Israeli civilian was at the centre of a dispute between Israel and Hamas last weekend.

It’s suspected she was being held by Islamic Jihad, another militant group in Gaza.

A third Israeli, civilian Gadi Mozes, 80, was also released on Thursday.

Israeli military identified the five Thai nationals as Thenna Pongsak, Sathian Suwannakhan, Sriaoun Watchara, Seathao Bannawat and Rumnao Surasak.

In return for the release of the Israeli hostages, Israel is expected to set free 110 Palestinians detained in prisons, including children, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society.

Among them are a 61-year-old held since 1992 and 30 teenagers, the youngest a 15-year-old boy.

Their release was pausedafter the Israeli PM condemned the “shocking” scenes of the handovers to the Red Cross.

Benjamin Netanyahu said Palestinian detainees would be held until the safe exit of Israeli hostages was guaranteed in future.

He said later that he had received such a commitment, and Israeli media reported the releases of Palestinians would go ahead.

The war has devastated much of Gaza’s infrastructure, including homes, roads, sanitation and communications networks.

The latest planned exchange is part of a fragile truce – mediated by the US, Qatar and Egypt – that began on 19 January and has so far held, aimed at winding down the deadliest war ever fought between Israel and Hamas.

In the first round, Hamas released three Israeli soldiers, including British-Israeli Emily Damari, in return for 90 Palestinians, including a teacher who said she had been held for seven months.

Among the roughly 250 people taken from Israel during Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack which ignited the conflict, some have died in captivity in Gaza, while others have been released or rescued.

More than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive, according to Hamas-run authorities in Gaza, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

On Monday, hundreds of thousands of Gazans traversed rubble and dirt to return to what was left of their homes in the north of the Gaza Strip.

But joy was tempered by grief as many discovered shattered or looted homes, no running water in the vicinity and dire shortages of basic supplies.

On Thursday, a new Israeli law came into effect banning the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) from Israeli territory.

It raised fears of a shutdown of its schools, medical facilities and other services in east Jerusalem – and possibly more in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where UNRWA is the biggest provider of aid.

British MP Sarah Champion, who chairs the International Development Committee of MPs, called the ban “devastating”.

“Food, water, education, even rubbish collection will all be affected,” she said.

“In the strongest possible terms, I urge the UK government to do everything it can to get all parties round the table and ensure that UNRWA can fulfil its UN-mandated work. The success of the current ceasefire hangs in the balance if not.”

An Iraqi man who burned copies of the Koran in Sweden has been killed in a shooting, Swedish authorities say.

Swedish police said Salwan Momika was shot dead in a house in Sodertalje, a town near Stockholm, on Wednesday, hours before a court verdict was due in a trial in connection with his burning of the Koran.

Five people have been been arrested, but police did not say whether the gunman was among those detained.

Mr Momika, a refugee and anti-Islam campaigner, staged several desecrations of Islam’s holy book in public or in social media broadcasts in 2023.

Worldwide publicity of the burnings caused widespread anger and criticism, as well as riots in Sweden and numerous Muslim countries.

Sweden’s prime minister has expressed concern the shooting may be linked to a foreign power.

“I can assure you that the security services are deeply involved because there is obviously a risk that there is a connection to a foreign power,” Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said at a news conference on Thursday.

A court in Stockholm had been due to sentence Mr Momika, 38, and another man on Thursday over “offences of agitation against an ethnic or national group,” in connection with the Koran burnings.

The court said the verdict was postponed because one of the defendants had died.

Judge Goran Lundahl and court documents confirmed Mr Momika was the deceased.

Meanwhile, police said they were alerted to a shooting in Sodertalje on Wednesday night.

Officers found a man with gunshot wounds, who later died. A preliminary murder investigation was opened.

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The 38-year-old was streaming live on TikTok at the time he was shot, local media has reported.

A video seen by news agency Reuters showed police picking up a phone and ending a livestream that appeared to be from his account on the app.

In 2023, Sweden raised its terrorism threat to the second-highest level after Koran burnings, many of them by Mr Momika, triggered threats from jihadists.

Burning the Koran is seen by Muslims as a blasphemous act because they consider it the literal word of God.

A ban preventing UNRWA, the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, from operating in Occupied East Jerusalem and Israel has come into force today.

The highly controversial move came into force after the Israeli Parliament voted in favour three months ago, and after a legal challenge to pause the ban was rejected by the Israeli Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Israel accuses UNRWA of having close links to Hamas in Gaza, which the organisation denies.

Nine UNRWA employees were sacked for taking part in the 7 October attacks.

Many donor countries initially suspended funding but most, including the UK, have since reinstated it.

“UNRWA equals Hamas,” an Israeli government spokesman said yesterday. “Israel has made public irrefutable evidence UNRWA is riddled with Hamas operatives.”

No evidence has been presented of those links existing in Jerusalem or the West Bank.

In the Shuafat refugee camp close to Jerusalem, Palestinian patients told us they were angry and concerned by the loss of vital services.

“I’m against this decision, we’re all against it, the whole camp,” said Amal. “Everyone has benefited from this clinic. Both West Bank and Jerusalem residents.

“I’ve been coming here ever since I was a little girl, we’ve gotten used to coming here. This really doesn’t work for us.”

Another patient, Mohammed, was carrying boxes of prescription medicine, paid for by UNRWA because he couldn’t afford them himself.

“I have a chronic disease and I rely on a monthly prescription,” he told us. “My children get treated here; their children get vaccinated.

“And all of this is for free. I could not afford this medicine otherwise.”

Although the ban only concerns operations in Occupied East Jerusalem, Israel has also severed communication with the Agency and revoked the visas of international staff, making it extremely hard to continue services in Gaza and the West Bank.

Almost all of the two million residents of Gaza rely on UNRWA in some form. UNRWA has contacts on the ground that no other agency has or could replicate in the current crisis.

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Following the vote to ban UNRWA, the Head of the World Food Programme Cindy McCain described the agency as “indispensable” and tweeted that “the decision will have devastating consequences on food security.”

UNRWA, which was established following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, provides medical services to at least 70,000 Palestinians in Jerusalem and runs schools for thousands of pupils as well as maintaining streets and carrying out waste disposal.

Israel says those pupils will now be transferred to municipality schools but UNRWA says there has been little to no coordination around who will replace other services.

“We have not been given any indications of plans or indeed proposals by the Israeli authorities, not in East Jerusalem, also not in the West Bank,” UNRWA’s director of West Bank operations Roland Friedrich told Sky News.

He added: “It is very concerning because it doesn’t allow us to basically coordinate, prepare and in fact, to try to see how things can be done going forward.

“The collapse of UNRWA in the West Bank and in fact also in the Gaza Strip cannot be in the interest of anybody, not of Israelis, not of Palestinians, not of neighbouring countries, and clearly also not for those who care about the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.”