Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will begin talks on a second phase to the Gaza ceasefire in Washington on Monday, his office said hours after the completion of the fourth hostage-prisoner exchange of the truce.

Netanyahu spoke with the US President's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on Saturday and agreed that negotiations would "begin when they meet in Washington".

A date for formal talks involving mediators and delegations from Hamas and Israel has not been set, with the 42-day first phase due to end next month.

Sudan's paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, in a rare video address on Friday, acknowledged setbacks in the capital Khartoum but vowed to expel the army from the city again.

The war since April 2023 between Daglo's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the army has killed tens of thousands of people, uprooted more than 12 million, according to the United Nations, and pushed millions to the brink of famine.

Hayan Hadid was 18 when soldiers arrested him in his pyjamas and took him for execution in Syria's Hama in 1982, during one of the darkest chapters of the Assad clan's rule.

"I've never really talked about that, it was a secret. Only my family knew," said Hadid, now a father of five.

In light of the December 8 ouster of Bashar al-Assad, "we can talk at last", he said.

On February 2, 1982, amid an information blackout, Assad's father and then leader Hafez launched a crackdown in Hama in central Syria against an armed Muslim Brotherhood revolt.

US President Donald Trump insisted Thursday that Egypt and Jordan would take in displaced Gazans, despite the two Arab nations dismissing his plan to move Palestinians from the territory.

Trump's comments came a day after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan's King Abdullah II rejecting any forced displacement of Gazans following the war between Hamas and Israel.

Iraqi refugee Salwan Momika, who was shot dead late Wednesday in Sweden, stoked international controversy with his Koran burnings.

In June 2023, the 38-year-old with a chequered past sparked outrage when he stomped on the Islamic holy book and wrapped it in bacon before lighting a few pages on fire, slamming it shut and kicking it like a football.

Momika, along with co-protester Salwan Najem, went on to stage several similar protests, in one instance outside Iraq's embassy in Stockholm -- although he refrained from burning it on that occasion.

Islamic Jihad and Hamas fighters struggled to hold back a crowd of hundreds in a chaotic handover of two Israeli and five Thai hostages in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza on Thursday.

Spectators surged forwards, some trying to take pictures, as 80-year-old Israeli-German Gadi Moses and 29-year-old Israeli woman Arbel Yehud, were transferred to Red Cross vehicles along with five Thai hostages.

Syria's interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, promised Thursday to hold a "national dialogue conference" in his first address to the nation since the fall of ousted leader Bashar al-Assad.

Sharaa, who was appointed interim president a day earlier for an unspecified transitional period, vowed to preserve "civil peace" and Syria's territorial unity.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed what he described as "shocking scenes" during the handover on Thursday of seven hostages including two Israelis.

"I view with great severity the shocking scenes during the release of our hostages. This is yet another proof of the unimaginable cruelty of the Hamas terrorist organisation," Netanyahu said in a statement, after television images showed gunmen struggling to control hundreds of Gazans gathered to witness the handover.

Zakaria Zubeidi, a former leader of a Palestinian militant group jailed for attacks that killed several Israelis, was released Thursday as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

Zubeidi, 49, is one of the most high-profile of 110 prisoners, including 30 minors, freed in exchange for three Israelis, the Palestinian Prisoners' Club advocacy group said.

Zubeidi rose to prominence during the Second Intifada, a Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s, becoming one of the best-known militant leaders in Jenin and its refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

An Iraqi refugee in Sweden who repeatedly burned the Koran in 2023, sparking outrage in Muslim countries, has been shot dead, investigators said Thursday, with Sweden's prime minister suggesting a "foreign power" might have been involved.

Prosecutor Rasmus Oman confirmed to AFP that an investigation had been opened into the murder of 38-year-old Salwan Momika and that five people had been arrested.

"We're in the very early stages... there's a lot of information gathering. Five people have been detained suspected of involvement in the crime," Oman said.