Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan accused Israel of “regional aggression” and “expansionism” following recent remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his country would not allow Syria’s new army to enter areas south of Damascus.

Fidan on Wednesday also welcomed a national dialogue conference held by Syria’s new rulers who have promised an inclusive political transition.

An Israeli human rights group says Palestinian doctors from Gaza have faced systematic abuse in Israeli military detention, including starvation and medical neglect “amounting to torture.”

The report by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, released Wednesday, is based on interviews with 24 doctors who spent time in Israel’s network of military detention facilities.

Egypt on Wednesday rejected a proposal floated by Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid suggesting the Gaza Strip could be ruled and rebuilt by Egypt in exchange for debt relief.

In response to an Associated Press inquiry, Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Tamim Khalaf said any proposals that didn’t call for Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state “are rejected and unaccepted.”

Israel's prime minister's office said authorities have received the bodies of four hostages early Thursday, days before the first phase of the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will end.

An Israeli security official confirmed that Hamas handed the bodies to the Red Cross. Israel said the caskets were delivered with the help of Egyptian mediators through an Israeli crossing and an identification process has begun.

Steve Witkoff, U.S. President Donald Trump’s point person on the Middle East, has voiced optimism at efforts to bring Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords, a series of normalization agreements between Israel and Arab states that Trump brokered during his first term.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has suggested the Gaza Strip could be ruled and rebuilt by neighboring Egypt. In exchange, he said, Gulf Arab countries and the international community would help Egypt with its spiraling economic crisis by paying off billions of dollars in foreign debt.

Lapid said Egypt could lead a “peace force” backed from regional allies that would govern a demilitarized Gaza for eight years, possibly as long as 15 years.

Hamas said it would exchange the bodies of four Israeli hostages for more than 600 Palestinian prisoners on Thursday, capping the first phase of a Gaza ceasefire deal.

The United States said talks were on track for a second phase of the ceasefire deal that has largely held but whose complexity and long-drawn-out implementation have highlighted its fragility.

The Israeli army said it carried out air strikes targeting military sites containing weapons in southern Syria on Tuesday, just days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for demilitarizing the area.

The United States said talks for a second phase of a Gaza ceasefire deal were on track, as Hamas said Israel agreed to release Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the bodies of four Israeli hostages.

In Israel, thousands of mourners gathered for the funeral procession of Shiri Bibas and her sons, who were killed in captivity in Gaza and had become symbols of the hostages' ordeal.

Iran has put its defense systems around its nuclear sites on high alert amid fears of an attack by Israel and the U.S., The Telegraph British newspaper said Tuesday.

The daily said that, according to two high-level government sources, Iran has been on high alert and that several additional air defense system launchers have been deployed.