When Syrian grandfather Omar Kafozi returned to his house near Damascus after Bashar al-Assad's ouster, he saw unfathomable destruction.

Now, cushions and plants brighten the wreckage that he is determined to call home again.

"As soon as we found out that... the regime was gone and that people were coming back... we sorted our things" and packed the car, said Kafozi, 74, standing in the wreckage of his home in a former rebel bastion near the capital.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had launched an operation in the occupied West Bank's Jenin that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said aimed to "eradicate terrorism" in the area.

The Palestinian health ministry, based in Ramallah, said the operation had killed 10 people, just days after a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect in the Gaza Strip.

In a joint statement, the military and the Shin Bet security agency said that, alongside the Israeli Border Police, they had launched an operation dubbed "Iron Wall" in Jenin.

The head of Israel's military resigned on Tuesday, taking responsibility for its "failure" to stop Hamas's October 7 attack, days after a fragile truce took effect following 15 months of war in the Gaza Strip.

In his resignation letter, released by the army, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said he was stepping down "due to my acknowledgement of responsibility for the (military's) failure on October 7", but added that he was leaving at a time of "significant successes".

The Taliban government said Tuesday it had released two American citizens from prison in return for an Afghan fighter held in the United States, in a deal brokered by Qatar.

Outgoing US president Joe Biden agreed on the deal shortly before leaving office on Monday, with the exchange finally taking place after Donald Trump returned to the White House, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.

US President Donald Trump said Monday he was not confident a ceasefire deal in Gaza would hold, despite trumpeting his diplomacy to secure it ahead of his inauguration.

Asked by a reporter as he returned to the White House whether the two sides would maintain the truce and move on in the agreement, Trump said, "I'm not confident."

"That's not our war; it's their war. But I'm not confident," Trump said.

Trump, however, said that he believed Hamas had been "weakened" in the war that began with its unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

The relatives of the three Israeli hostages released from Gaza by Palestinian militants Hamas called on Monday for all those remaining in the territory to be freed.

Speaking at a press conference at the Sheba hospital where the three women are being treated, they gave no details on the conditions in which their relatives had been held for 471 days or on their health.

Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher were released on Sunday as part of the first round of exchanges that also saw around 90 Palestinian prisoners freed from Israeli jails.

Palestinian Iman Nafeh had been eagerly awaiting her husband's return ever since she heard he would be released from prison as part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

But her joy was cut short when she learned he would be expelled from the Palestinian territories immediately after he was freed.

After spending 44 years behind bars in Israeli custody, 34 of them consecutively, Nael Barghouthi holds the record for the lengthiest detention among Palestinians, according to advocacy group the Palestinian Prisoners Club.

For the first time in more than a year, war-displaced Gazan Ammar Barbakh awoke on Monday feeling refreshed after a night spent in a tent, but free of Israeli attacks.

"This is the first time I sleep comfortably and I'm not afraid," Barbakh, 35, told AFP a day after a fragile truce in the Israel-Hamas war took hold.

"We didn't hear any shelling, and we weren't afraid," he said.

Barbakh, from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, pitched a tent on the rubble of his former home.

Despite the destruction, he was thrilled to have had a peaceful sleep.

Syrian phone shop owner Abdel Razzaq Hamra was thrilled to finally be working in peace after years of being harassed and detained by security personnel enforcing an Assad-linked company's monopoly.

Before president Bashar al-Assad was ousted last month, his security forces would raid the central Damascus district where dozens of mobile stores operate in search of phones without the Emmatel company logo.

"If they would find one device without an Emmatel sticker, they would confiscate everything," said Hamra, 33.

The mother of US journalist Austin Tice, who went missing in Syria in 2012, said on Monday in Damascus that the war-torn country's new leadership was committed to finding him.

Tice was working as a freelance journalist for Agence France-Presse, McClatchy News, The Washington Post, CBS and other media outlets when he was detained at a checkpoint in August 2012.

"I have been privileged to meet with the new leadership of Syria," Debra Tice told journalists in Damascus, after holding talks with Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.