Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he will discuss "victory over Hamas," countering Iran and expanding diplomatic relations with Arab countries in his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Tuesday's meeting at the White House will be Trump's first with a foreign leader since returning to office. It comes as U.S. and Arab mediators begin the daunting work of brokering the next phase of an agreement to wind down the war in the Gaza Strip and release dozens of militant-held hostages.

Syria's interim president made his first trip abroad Sunday, traveling to Saudi Arabia in a move likely trying to signal Damascus' shift away from Iran as its main regional ally.

Ahmad al-Sharaa, who was once aligned with al-Qaida, landed in Riyadh alongside his government's foreign minister, Asaad al-Shaibani. The two men traveled on a Saudi jet, with a Saudi flag visible on the table behind them.

Two hostages arrived in Israel after Hamas handed them over to the Red Cross on Saturday as part of the fourth round of hostage releases during the Gaza ceasefire deal. Dozens of Palestinian prisoners are to be released from Israeli prisons in return.

The truce, which began Jan. 19, is aimed at winding down the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and the Hamas militant group.

Israel released 110 Palestinian prisoners on Thursday in exchange for three Israeli hostages held in Gaza. Five Thai workers held captive in the enclave were also freed in a separate deal with Thailand. Thursday's prisoner-for-hostage swap marked the third round of exchanges as a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas entered its second week.

Most of the prisoners stepped off the Red Cross bus and onto the shoulders of jubilant supporters in the occupied West Bank, where U.N. data shows that one in five Palestinians has passed through Israeli jail and the release of prisoners is a source of joyous national celebration — a homecoming in which almost all Palestinians felt they could partake.

The U.S. military said it killed a senior operative of Al-Qaeda's Syria branch in an air strike on northwestern Syria on Thursday.

The area was the stronghold of interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa's Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group before it led the rebel offensive that toppled Bashar al-Assad in December.

Hamas confirmed the death of Mohammad Deif, head of its military wing and one of the alleged masterminds of the Oct. 7 attack, six months after Israel announced he was killed in an airstrike in Gaza.

It was Hamas’ first statement on his condition since the Israeli military announced last August that he was killed in southern Gaza the month before. Hamas also confirmed the deaths of four other members.

Crowds of Palestinians — the relatives and friends of released prisoners but also scores of jubilant supporters — mobbed buses carrying the prisoners. As soon as they stepped off the buses, the crowd hoisted the prisoners in the air.

Zakaria Zubeidi — a prominent former militant leader and theater director who took part in a dramatic jailbreak in 2021 before being rearrested days later — wore a grey prison jumpsuit and flashed a victory sign from inside one of the buses.

Hamas's armed wing released the names of three Israeli captives to be freed on Saturday in the fourth hostage-prisoner swap of the Gaza ceasefire.

Palestinian militants have so far freed 15 hostages since the ceasefire took effect on January 19.

Israel on Thursday formally banned the main United Nations aid agency for Palestinian refugees from operating on its territory despite heavy diplomatic backlash, a move that humanitarian officials warn could have a disastrous impact on aid delivery and jeopardize regional stability in the long term.

The order against the agency, known as UNRWA, went into effect at midnight on Thursday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said. But hours later, there was no change on the ground except in the most cosmetic sense — right-wing activists clambered up the high stone walls of UNRWA's headquarters compound in east Jerusalem, yanked down the blue-and-white U.N. flag, hoisting up Israel's blue-and-white instead.

Israel has suspended the release of Palestinian prisoners "until further notice", army radio reported Thursday, right in the middle of the third exchange for hostages of the Gaza ceasefire.

"The political echelon announced the suspension of the operation to release the terrorists until further notice," the radio said citing a security source, after eight hostages released in Gaza were back on Israeli soil.