Thousands of grieving Israelis gathered in the Tel Aviv plaza dubbed Hostages Square on Thursday, standing or sitting in silent mourning, after Hamas handed over the bodies of four hostages.

The Palestinian militants had delivered the black coffins they said contained the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her two young boys, Kfir and Ariel -- who became symbols of the ordeal that has gripped Israel since the Gaza war began with the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023.

Eight civilians including three children were killed on Thursday when unexploded munitions ignited at a house in northwestern Syria, a war monitor and the civil defence said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported the deadly blast a day after another organisation said two-thirds of Syrians were at risk of being killed or wounded by unexploded ordnance.

Hundreds watched on Thursday as four black coffins, which Hamas said held the remains of Israel's Bibas family and an elderly hostage, were carried off stage by Palestinian militants in southern Gaza.

The ceremony, held on a sandy area that was once a cemetery before its destruction by Israeli forces, marked the first handover of deceased captives under a fragile Israel-Hamas truce.

Iran executed at least 975 people last year in a "horrifying escalation" of its use of capital punishment, two human rights groups said on Thursday.

Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and French group Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) said the figure was the highest since IHR began recording executions in Iran in 2008.

The figure "reveals a horrifying escalation in the use of the death penalty by the Islamic republic in 2024," they said in a joint report, accusing Iran of using the death penalty as a "central tool of political oppression".

Israel said Friday that one of the bodies returned from Gaza is not that of Shiri Bibas, as claimed by Hamas, and accused Palestinian "terrorists" of killing her two boys who have become symbols of the hostages' ordeal.

Thousands of mourning Israelis had observed a moment of silence Thursday in honour of four dead hostages returned by Hamas, the first handover of bodies under the fragile ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas said the remains included those of Bibas and her two young sons, whose father was released by the militant group this month.

Lebanon's Hezbollah is preparing for a massive turnout for the funeral on Sunday of its slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, an opportunity for a show of strength by the Iran-backed group after a bruising war with Israel.

Nasrallah's death nearly five months ago in a huge Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs left Hezbollah supporters in disbelief and sent shockwaves across Lebanon and the region.

The country will stop for Sunday's funeral, to be held at 1:00 pm (1100 GMT) at the Camille Chamoun sports stadium on the capital's outskirts.

Prominent Tunisian human rights activist Sihem Bensedrine was released from jail on Wednesday after an appeals court ruling, AFP journalists said, although she remains barred from leaving the country.

A court spokesman earlier said Bensedrine cannot leave Tunisia as she still faces charges in other cases.

"I can only be happy, as no one wants to be in this hole," she said upon her release on Wednesday evening from Manouba prison in the suburbs of the capital.

Syria's tiny Jewish community said they held their first group prayer in decades Wednesday, in a synagogue in Damascus's Old City, expressing joy at the long-awaited return to public worship.

In the Faranj synagogue, Syrian-American Rabbi Yusuf Hamra led the prayer for the first time since arriving this week from the United States, where he has lived since the 1990s.

"The last time I visited the synagogue here and prayed was before I travelled to America," said Hamra, 77.

Egypt's antiquities authority says it has found the ancient tomb of King Thutmose II, the first royal burial to be located since the famed discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922.

The tomb, discovered near the Valley of the Kings in Luxor in southern Egypt, belonged to King Thutmose II of the 18th dynasty, who lived nearly 3,500 years ago.

Thutmose II was an ancestor to Tutankhamun himself, and his half-sister and queen consort was Pharaoh Hatshepsut.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Wednesday rejected a controversial proposal by US President Donald Trump to displace Palestinians from the war-devastated Gaza Strip.

The Arab League is scheduled to hold an extraordinary meeting in Cairo on March 4 in response to Trump's plan to take over Gaza and permanently move its Palestinian inhabitants elsewhere, including to Egypt and Jordan, and then redevelop the coastal territory into the "Riviera of the Middle East".