Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber said that while Palestinian passport-holders qualified for 90-day visa-exempt access to South Africa, the lack of departure stamps, return tickets or accommodation addresses in some of the travellers' documentation resulted in the initial refusal to let them into the country.

Israel said Thursday that militants have handed over the body of one of the last four remaining hostages taken during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that launched the war in Gaza.

Palestinians in a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank held weekly communal prayers on Friday after clearing insulting graffiti, broken glass and burn marks from a mosque they say was targeted by Jewish settlers amid a spike in attacks.