Family and friends of released Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov clapped, burst into tears and popped bottles of champagne as they watched him walk free on Saturday after being handed over by Hamas in Gaza.

Shem Tov was among six Israeli captives freed by Palestinian militants as part of the seventh hostage-prisoner swap to take place under the first phase of a fragile truce which took effect last month.

Militants released four hostages seized in Hamas's unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and two men who had been held captive for a decade.

Hamas paraded five Israeli hostages, some looking dazed and others elated, before cheering crowds at two meticulously recorded ceremonies in the Gaza Strip on Saturday.

In the first well-rehearsed morning ceremony in Rafah, Hamas fighters stood in an orderly fashion as they handed over hostages Tal Shoham and Avera Mengistu, who walked with apparent difficulty, to the Red Cross.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that freeing Palestinian prisoners under the Gaza ceasefire deal will be delayed until Hamas ends its "humiliating ceremonies" while releasing Israeli hostages.

Since the ceasefire came into effect on January 19, Hamas has released 25 Israeli hostages in well-rehearsed handovers, with masked militants parading the captives on stage and forcing them to wave at Gazans gathered to watch.

Syria's tiny Jewish community and Syrian Jews abroad are trying to build bridges after Bashar al-Assad's ouster in the hope of reviving their ancient heritage before the community dies out.

This week, a small number of Jews living in Damascus, along with others from abroad, held a group prayer for the first time in more than three decades, in the Faranj synagogue in Damascus's Old City.

"There were nine of us Jews (in Syria). Two died recently," community leader Bakhour Chamntoub told AFP in his home in the Old City's Jewish quarter.

Arab leaders met in Riyadh on Friday to craft a plan for Gaza's post-war reconstruction to counter Donald Trump's proposal for the United States to take over the territory without its Palestinian residents.

Trump's plan has united Arab states in opposition to it, but disagreements remain over who should govern Gaza and how its reconstruction can be funded.

A photo from the meeting showed the kingdom's de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with the leaders of other Gulf Arab states, as well as Egypt and Jordan.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the army to step up its operations in the occupied West Bank on Friday as he paid a rare visit to troops in the territory that drew Palestinian condemnation.

Netanyahu's visit to Tulkarem refugee camp in the north of the territory came after bombs that Israeli officials said resembled those used by militants in the West Bank exploded on multiple buses in central Israel on Thursday.

The prime minister's office said he ordered more "operational activity" in the northern West Bank in response to the bomb blasts.

The daughter of murdered British aid worker this week at the Paris trial of two of his presumed Islamic State group jailers recounted her anguish after her father went missing in war-torn Syria in 2013.

In a Paris court on Thursday, Bethany Haines, 27, read out the last text message she would ever receive from her father, David Haines, before he was abducted by IS in north Syria aged 42.

Sitting in the dock as she read were Frenchmen Mehdi Nemmouche, 39, and Abdelmalek Tanem, 35, on trial for holding four French journalists hostage for IS in Syria between 2013 and 2014.

Argentina announced two days of national mourning on Thursday after the bodies of two Israeli Argentine children who had been taken hostage by Hamas were handed over by the group.

Hamas delivered the bodies of four hostages on Thursday, three of which it said were members of the Bibas family — Shiri Bibas and her two young sons.

While the identities of the Bibas boys, Kfir and Ariel were confirmed by Israeli forensics, they said Shiri was not among them, as the militants had claimed.

Israel's prime minister accused Hamas on Friday of killing two Israeli children in Gaza and said the militants would pay for failing to return their mother, Shiri Bibas, which Hamas blamed on a possible "mix-up" of bodies.

Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said after an analysis of the remains that Palestinian militants had killed the Bibas boys "with their bare hands", while Hamas has long maintained an Israeli air strike killed them and their mother early in the war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday ordered an "intensive operation against centers of terrorism" in the occupied West Bank, his office said, after three buses exploded in central Israel without causing any reported injuries.

Three devices detonated on buses in the city of Bat Yam on Thursday evening and two others were being defused, according to police, with Israel's defence minister accusing "Palestinian terrorist" groups of being behind the blasts.