Macron stated without providing release details: "Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, who had been detained in Iran for three years, have been released from Evin Prison and are on their way to the French Embassy in Tehran."

Mizan, the Iranian Judiciary's outlet, reported this October that two French citizens received heavy sentences for "espionage" and "intelligence cooperation with Israel." Though unnamed in the Judiciary's announcement, independent reporting and French officials confirmed the sentences applied to Kohler and Paris.

Authorities arrested the couple in 2022 after they traveled to Iran. That May, state television broadcast a segment connecting their detention to teacher protests, accusing Kohler, a member of the Education and Culture Federation of the French Labor Union, and her husband Paris of "organizing unrest and disorder" while linking them to union activists Eskandar Lotfi, Masoud Nik-Khah, Sha'ban Mohammadi, and Rasoul Bodaghi.

Throughout their imprisonment, relatives and the French government rejected all accusations and demanded their immediate release, HRANA reported.

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Thee IDF withdrawal to the "yellow line" on the agreed map being was completed on Friday noon, the military announced, triggering setting in motion the implementation of President Donald Trump's deal, brokered earlier this week. The first stage of the deal effectively began, with all hostages to be returned within 72 hours in a single batch. US President Donald Trump will arrive in the country on Monday for a brief visit, during which he is expected to address the Knesset plenum.

The ceasefire agreement entered into effect starting at noon. IDF forces positioned themselves on current deployment lines, in accordance with the ceasefire agreement framework and hostage return. Southern Command IDF forces are deployed in the area and will continue to operate to remove any immediate threat. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked President Donald Trump and said it would have not been possible without Israel's military and diplomatic pressure on Hamas. Netanyahu said the IDF will remain in Gaza to continue pressuring Hamas until it relinquishes its weapons.

The ministers, called for an urgent telephone vote, approved the revised terrorist release list. Among the opponents were National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Minister Amichai Eliyahu, Wasserlauf and Strock.

With the ceasefire taking effect, IDF Arabic spokesperson Col. Avihai Adraei issued clarifications to the Gaza population. "In accordance with the agreement, IDF forces continue to remain in various locations throughout the Strip. Avoid approaching IDF forces. Approaching the forces endangers you. You are warned that in the northern Strip it is extremely dangerous to approach the area of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and Shujaiyya and all force concentrations. Do not move toward Israeli territory, and do not approach the buffer zone. Approaching the buffer zone is extremely dangerous."

The policing mechanisms of "Hamas Interior Security Ministry" announced they are preparing to deploy in areas from which the IDF began withdrawing in the Gaza Strip. The terror organization seeks to convey the message that they still maintain a hold in the Gaza Strip.

Bereaved families have petitioned the Supreme Court against the deal, claiming the government is "trading in our children's blood." The government is required to submit its response to the petition by 2:00 p.m. The Government will convene for discussion on phase 2 of the agreement.

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Hundreds of detainees from Yemen's conflict were released Saturday as part of a major prisoner exchange that began a day earlier, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

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The deal, brokered by the United Nations last month, has been the most significant exchange of prisoners in years. It comes amid concerted and diplomatic efforts to negotiate an end to the long-running war in Yemen.

It involves the release of more than 800 prisoners from all sides of the war that began in 2014 when the Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized Yemen's capital, Sanaa, overthrowing the internationally recognized government. The government fled to the south and then into exile in Saudi Arabia.

The Houthi takeover prompted a Saudi-led coalition to intervene months later, and the conflict turned into a regional proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, with the United States long involved on the periphery, providing intelligence assistance to the kingdom. However, international criticism over Saudi airstrikes killing civilians saw the US pull back its support.

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A conference of Hamas leaders in Cairo and a series of meetings with Egyptian intelligence officials have resulted in "significant progress" in talks between Hamas and Israel for a long-term ceasefire, the Saudi news outlet Asharq News reported overnight Saturday.

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The Saudi report also said that Egyptian mediators had tried to move both sides closer to a workable prisoner exchange deal.

Earlier this weekend, the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen reported that Hamas had told Egyptian representatives mediating its negotiations with Israel that it would a lasting ceasefire and a prisoner swap should Israel agree to a number of conditions.

The group's demands include freedom of movement for Palestinians inside the buffer zone along the borders of the Gaza Strip, and that IDF vehicles refrain from "incursions" into eastern border areas.

Hamas said it was committed to maintaining the current state calm as long as Israel adhered to it, the report said.
"Consolidating the calm is part of the agreement to establish the mutual ceasefire," the report quoted Hamas negotiators as saying.

As for a possible prisoner exchange, Hamas claimed that it has supplied the Egyptians with a complete roadmap for the prisoner swap deal; the terrorist group considers that "the ball regarding the exchange deal is now in Israel's court."

Egypt, in coordination with United States, has longstanding relations with both sides in the conflict and played a key role in brokering several ceasefires between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Part of this article was first published by i24NEWS.

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Sinwar was speaking in response to remarks Gantz made about a possible military response to rockets fired from the Gaza Strip toward southern Israel.

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In a meeting at which Hamas' politburo leader Ismail Haniyeh and UN Special Coordinator for the Gaza Strip Sergey Mladenov were also present, Sinwar called Gantz "the next leader of the occupation."

According to a report on the Al Ghad TV station, at a separate meeting with young people in Gaza, Sinwar said, "If Israel continues to tighten the siege on Gaza, we'll shoot rockets at Tel Aviv for six months straight. We'll turn the cities of Israel into ghost towns."

Over the past few days, Sinwar had made a number of stringent anti-Israeli declarations. In an interview Sunday, he said that a prisoner exchange deal was not currently possible because of the political situation in Israel and the "leadership vacuum it has created."

Sinwar also said that "They don't even have a government that can agree on a budget, or a limited government to discuss security issues such as the Iranian threat, for example."

Sinwar promised he would continue to work toward a prisoner exchange deal with Israel, and stressed that the welfare of Palestinian prisoners was a top priority for Hamas.

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Iran did not detail the names it relayed, but Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said he hoped to hear soon "good news" about the release of Iranian scientist Masoud Soleimani. US federal authorities arrested Soleimani last year on charges that he had violated trade sanctions by trying to have biological material brought to Iran. Zarif said he raised the issue last month in his visit to New York to attend the UN General Assembly, according to the semiofficial Fars news agency.

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Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said the Islamic republic has relayed which Iranians should be included in the suggested swap with the United States and other Western nations. Iran holds several American nationals and did not detail whom it would consider freeing.

"We have handed over a list of names [to the United States] who must be freed," Mousavi said, in a briefing with reporters. "We hope that these efforts, if paired with goodwill, would pay off soon and we would see freedom of Dr. Soleimani and other Iranians from the Americans' captivity."

Iran contends Soleimani and others were detained over what they called "baseless" accusations of bypassing unilateral American sanctions on Iran. It's not clear how many other Iranians the US has detained, and there was no immediate American reaction.

Tensions between Iran and the United States have steadily escalated since President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the 2015 nuclear deal last May and reimposed sanctions on Iran. Prosecutors in Atlanta got an indictment the following month against Soleimani, who works in stem cell research, hematology, and regenerative medicine. US officials revoked his visa and arrested him in October when he landed in Chicago.

The US blames Iran for a series of mysterious oil tanker attacks this year and alleges it carried out last month's attack on the world's largest oil processor in Saudi Arabia, which caused oil prices to spike by the biggest percentage since the 1991 Gulf War.

Iran denies the accusations and has warned any retaliatory attack targeting it will result in an "all-out war," as it has begun enriching uranium beyond the terms of its 2015 nuclear deal. Iran also shot down a US military surveillance drone and seized oil tankers.

A prisoner swap could offer a breakthrough following a pair of conciliatory moves.

A month ago, the US deported Iranian Negar Ghodskani who was brought to the US to face criminal conspiracy charges. She was sentenced to time served for conspiracy to illegally export restricted technology from the US to Iran.

In June, Iran released Nizar Zakka, a US permanent resident from Lebanon who advocated for internet freedom and has done work for the US government. He was sentenced to 10 years on espionage-related charges and was freed after serving less than four years.

However, in May, Iran sentenced former US Navy cook Michael R. White from Imperial Beach, California, to 10 years in prison in Iran, becoming the first American known to be imprisoned there since Trump took office.

Three other American citizens are known to be held in Iran, though Iran does not recognize their dual nationality

Iranian-American Siamak Namazi and his octogenarian father Baquer, a former representative for the UN children's agency UNICEF who served as governor of Iran's oil-rich Khuzestan province under the US-backed shah, are both serving 10-year sentences on espionage charges.

Iranian-American art dealer Karan Vafadari and his Iranian wife, Afarin Neyssari, received 27-year and 16-year prison sentences, respectively.

Chinese-American graduate student Xiyue Wang was sentenced to 10 years in prison for allegedly "infiltrating" the country while doing doctoral research on Iran's Qajar dynasty.

Iranian-American Robin Shahini was released on bail in 2017 after staging a hunger strike while serving an 18-year prison sentence for "collaboration with a hostile government." Shahini has since returned to America and is now suing Iran in the US federal court.

Former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who vanished in Iran in 2007 while on an unauthorized CIA mission, remains missing. Iran says that Levinson is not in the country and that it has no further information about him, though his family holds Tehran responsible for his disappearance.

Others held with Western ties include Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman who is serving a five-year prison sentence for allegedly planning the "soft toppling" of Iran's government while traveling with her young daughter. Her daughter left Iran for Britain last week.

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