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Qatar has called on the international community to press Israel into implementing the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire, saying its rejection of the peace plan is a continuation of the foot-dragging that has marked the accord since day one.Advisor to the Prime Minister and Foreign Ministry spokesman Dr Majed bin Mohammed al-Ansari told the ministry's weekly briefing that the recent declaration by Hamas had delivered a breakthrough, and that responsibility now rested with the Israeli side to meet its obligations.Doha continues to work with international partners to secure the transition to the second phase, based on the plan announced by the US president, he said, with mediation running in lockstep with the United States, Egypt and Turkiye.Al-Ansari said escalation on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank was dragging on, with rising numbers of martyrs and relentless attacks on schools, civilian institutions, hospitals and homes. He stressed the importance of the international community taking a clear position, and said Qatar was working with regional partners to shape a response proportionate to Israeli conduct.Qatar backs all measures taken by friendly nations, individually or collectively, he said, recalling the joint statement issued by the foreign ministers of Qatar, Jordan, the UAE, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Egypt on continued Israeli violations in Gaza. Practical steps would be announced in the days ahead, he revealed.On the visit of Sultan Haitham bin Tarik of Oman to Qatar, and whether it carried fresh messages or initiatives for de-escalation, al-Ansari said the current phase was a watershed moment in negotiations between the United States and Iran. He praised Omani efforts and reiterated Qatar's support for de-escalation.Qatar is engaged in those efforts and is following progress in the ongoing talks between Oman and Iran, he said. The minimum threshold at this stage, he added, is the restoration of freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz in line with international law.Asked about the effect of US economic pressure on Iran and its implications for de-escalation, al-Ansari said the priority now was to reopen the Strait and support the negotiating track, with talks among relevant parties still under way. Any delay in reaching an accord does not serve stability, he said, adding that Qatar, as a contributing party to mediation, wants the Strait reopened immediately, while leaving official remarks on the negotiations to the parties themselves.On the Gulf position regarding Iranian statements about the Strait, he said it amounted to a call for restoring the situation to what it had been before the crisis. What mattered most was ensuring freedom of maritime navigation, and Qatar's support for regional understandings would help protect both the security of the Strait and navigation rights under international law.Any future arrangements on managing the Strait, or on related matters, should rest on regional concurrence and full respect for international law in order to safeguard the security and stability of the region, he said.Turning to the Makkah joint defence agreement between Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan, al-Ansari welcomed any regional co-operation that strengthens security and stability. He recalled Qatar's close strategic ties with the three countries and said Doha viewed positively any defence framework built on co-operation and good-neighbourly relations.Regional security is a collective responsibility requiring further bilateral and regional co-ordination, he said, noting the several regional platforms in which Qatar participates to foster closer co-operation. 

Hamas is progressing towards a deal involving the decommissioning of its weapons, sources familiar with the ongoing talks with mediators in Cairo told AFP Thursday.A Hamas source added, however, that they were still in the process of making amendments to the proposal.The thorny issue of Hamas’s disarmament has been one of the key sticking points in the advancement of the ceasefire deal that has been in place between Israel and the group in Gaza since October.Under US President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza, the second phase of the ceasefire was to involve Hamas’s disarmament and a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territory.The plan also provides for a group of Palestinian technocrats, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), to assume day-to-day governance during Gaza’s transitional phase out of war.“We continue to advance the implementation roadmap that offers a balanced and pragmatic path forward, with all weapons decommissioned and a phased transition of responsibilities taking place to hand over full authority to the technocratic government,” a diplomatic source told AFP.The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak publicly on the matter, said there would be “no exceptions for certain weapons or certain people. One authority, one law, one weapon”.The roadmap would create “a process for the elimination of all tunnels, depots of weapons and any weapons production facilities”, the source said.“All weapons, heavy and light, will be under full control of the NCAG in co-ordination with and with the support of the ISF,” the source added, referring to the International Stabilisation Force, a fledgling body envisaged to comprise multinational troops operating under Trump’s Board of Peace.The source said a verification mechanism would ensure compliance by each side.A Hamas source familiar with the talks told AFP that the movement is “awaiting the Israeli response to the amendments we recently submitted to the mediators”.The source said the amendments concerned two articles in the roadmap presented by the Board of Peace.Regarding the article concerning weapons, the Hamas source said that “some points were removed, and alternatives were proposed”.The source said that the group was coming with a “positive and good” response, but did not say whether the group had agreed to fully disarm – a key sticking point in the talks over the past four months.The Palestinian movement wants Israel to commit to ending attacks on Gaza and withdrawing its forces.Sources close to Hamas said that the group was willing to “confine and store” heavy weapons under a Palestinian body, not hand them over to Israel.Hamas did not officially comment on the matter.“There is broad understanding on the definition of heavy weapons, and a formula has been developed that emphasises the concept of restricting and storing heavy weapons, disbanding armed groups and a simultaneous Israeli withdrawal,” the Hamas source added.Despite the ceasefire, violence has continued in Gaza, with Israeli strikes killing at least four people including two children on Thursday, according to health officials.The latest deaths add to a toll of more than 1,200 Palestinians, mostly civilians, killed by Israeli attacks since the ceasefire took effect, according to Gaza health officials.Four Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire.The Israeli military has continued to expand its military occupation of Gaza, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying that Israel intends to expand the area under its control to 70% of the enclave.So far, the NCAG has been based in Cairo without announcing a timeline for its entry into the Strip.It remains unclear how many forces would be available to deploy with the planned ISF, and whether Israeli troops would withdraw from the enclave.

Palestinian group Hamas has told mediators that it will not discuss giving up arms without guarantees that Israel will fully quit Gaza as laid out in a disarmament plan from US President Donald Trump's "Board of Peace", three sources told Reuters.Hamas's disarmament is a sticking point in talks to implement Trump's plan for the Palestinian enclave and cement an October ceasefire that halted two years of full-blown war.A Hamas delegation met with Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators in Cairo on Wednesday and Thursday to give their initial response to a disarmament proposal presented to the group last month, two Egyptian sources and a Palestinian official said.Hamas conveyed several demands and amendments to the board's plan, including an end to Israeli violations, implementation of all provisions and Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, the two Egyptian sources told Reuters.Hamas accuses Israel of breaking the ceasefire with attacks that have killed hundreds in Gaza.Israel says its strikes are aimed at thwarting imminent attacks by militants.The sources said that Hamas also sought clarification about what it described as Israel's continued expansion of areas under its control.Israel retained control of well over half of Gaza after the ceasefire.The sources said Hamas does not want to discuss disarmament before those issues are addressed.Two Hamas officials declined to comment on the content of the meetings.Israel's government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Representatives for the Board of Peace did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Another source with direct knowledge of the Board of Peace's thinking said that Hamas's response meant that talks over the group laying down its arms were unlikely to immediately lead to a breakthrough.The source said Hamas was supposed to meet with mediators again next week.The US may move forward with reconstruction absent Hamas disarmament, but only in areas under complete Israeli military control, the source said.Funding pledges important for reconstruction, many of which were from Gulf Arab states, were being held up during the Iran war, the source added.The Palestinian official close to the talks said Hamas was unlikely to reject the plan out of hand but "it will not say yes until the remarks and demands of Palestinian factions are addressed”.Israel says it will not agree to withdraw from Gaza unless Hamas is fully disarmed first.Trump's top Board of Peace envoy in the Middle East, Nickolay Mladenov, said in a social media post on Wednesday that all mediating parties had endorsed the plan."(The) international community has supported it, now is the time to agree to the framework for its implementation. For the sake of both Palestinians and Israelis, there is not time to lose," Mladenov said in a post on X.The events of October 7, 2023 in Israel killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies.Israel's ensuing two-year campaign killed more than 72,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to Gazan health authorities, and has spread famine, demolished most buildings, and displaced most of the territory's population, in many cases numerous times. 

Israel's assassination of a senior Hamas commander threatens the viability of the Gaza ceasefire, the chief negotiator of the resistance group said Sunday, calling on US President Donald Trump to demand Israel comply with the terms of the truce.Thousands of Hamas supporters rallied in central Gaza City at a funeral for senior commander Raed Saed and three associates killed alongside him on Saturday.The mourners chanted "Martyrs are dear to God" and carried the bodies in coffins draped in green Hamas flags, in one of the group's biggest displays of its presence since a US-backed ceasefire deal came into effect in Gaza in October.In a televised address, Hamas chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, who lives in exile, confirmed the killing of Saed, the highest-profile assassination of a senior Hamas figure since the truce."The continued Israeli violations of the ceasefire agreement... and latest assassinations that targeted Saed and others threaten the viability of the agreement," Hayya said."We call on mediators, and especially the main guarantor, the US administration and President Donald Trump, to work on obliging Israel to respect the ceasefire and commit to it."The Hamas armed wing said later Sunday it has chosen a replacement for Saed.Hamas sources have described Saed as the second-in-command of the group's armed wing, after Izzeldeen Al-Hadad.Hamas has not identified an overall chief since Israel killed the group's head, Yehya Al-Sinwar, in 2024. Instead, the group has since been led by a five-man high leadership council, of which Hayya is a member.Since the ceasefire, Israeli forces remain in control of the depopulated eastern half of Gaza, while the resistance group has reasserted its control over the western half, where nearly all of the enclave's more than 2 million people live in the ruins. 

Israel launched dozens of deadly strikes in Gaza Sunday, after accusing the resistance group Hamas of attacking its troops, in the worst violence since the start of a ceasefire nine days ago.Gaza's civil defence agency, which operates under Hamas authority, said at least 33 people had been killed across the territory.Hamas denied the accusations, with one official accusing Israel of fabricating "pretexts" to resume the war.In a separate statement, the Israeli military said two of its soldiers "fell during combat in the southern Gaza Strip".A security official said that Israel was also suspending the entry of aid into Gaza, blaming "Hamas's blatant violations" of the ceasefire.Israel repeatedly cut off aid to the territory during the war, exacerbating dire humanitarian conditions, with the United Nations saying it caused a famine in northern Gaza.The truce in the Palestinian territory, brokered by US President Donald Trump and taking effect on 10 October, brought to a halt more than two years of devastating war between Israel and Hamas.Palestinian witnesses said clashes erupted in the southern city of Rafah in an area still held by Israel.A statement from Izzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas's political bureau, reaffirmed the group's commitment to the ceasefire and said Israel "continues to breach the agreement and fabricate flimsy pretexts to justify its crimes".Hamas's armed wing insisted on Sunday that the group was adhering to the ceasefire agreement with Israel and had "no knowledge" of any clashes in Rafah.Israel resumes ceasefireThe Israeli military said Sunday it had resumed enforcing a ceasefire in Gaza after carrying out dozens of strikes on Hamas targets earlier in the day. "The IDF has begun the renewed enforcement of the ceasefire," the military said in a statement."The IDF will continue to uphold the ceasefire agreement and will respond firmly to any violation of it."

Gaza's civil defence agency said a series of Israeli air strikes on Sunday killed at least 11 people across the territory, as Israel and Hamas traded blame for violating a ceasefire.Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman for the agency, which operates as a rescue service under Hamas authority, said six of the victims were killed when an Israeli strike targeted a "group of civilians" in northern Gaza.The Israeli military told AFP it was checking the reports of casualties.An army official earlier said Israel may carry out further strikes in Gaza after its forces targeted fighters following three attacks in the southern city of Rafah and the northern town of Beit Lahia.

The EU is looking at providing funding and expertise to help disarm Hamas under US President Donald Trump's peace plan for Gaza, a document seen by AFP Friday said. The 27-nation bloc is discussing what role it can play after Europe was left on the sidelines as Trump sealed a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel. The agreement has so far seen the war grind to a halt after two years of constant bombardment and hunger for Gazans and agony for the hostages' families. According to Trump's 20-point plan for Gaza, the next phases of the truce should include the disarmament of Hamas, the offer of amnesty to Hamas leaders who decommission their weapons and establishing the governance of post-war Gaza. EU foreign ministers are set to discuss how the bloc might be involved in the peace process at a meeting on Monday. In a document circulated on Friday, the EU's diplomatic arm said member states should "assess and explore ways to finance and provide expertise for disarmament." An EU diplomat said that any involvement would likely be limited to "technical support" and that Europe would not be involved in any sort of "intervention force". The document said that the EU, the largest international donor to Gaza, should focus on helping ramp up humanitarian aid deliveries to the region. "The priority is to ensure the immediate delivery of aid at scale into and throughout Gaza in line with international humanitarian law," it said. The EU has said it is ready to redeploy a monitoring mission to the Rafah crossing point with Egypt when it opens and could help train a future police force in Gaza. As the biggest international donor to the Palestinians, the EU is also expected to play a role in helping cover the cost of reconstruction. But diplomats say they expect Middle East states to take the lead and the EU doesn't want to rebuild Gaza if Israel could launch fresh offensives in the future. "The EU should have a key role also in the recovery and reconstruction process," the document said, pointing to a "Palestine Donor Group" Brussels is pushing to establish. "The EU should maximise its leverage with a view to gaining more influence on the process through the variety of tools at its disposal." The EU has struggled to exert influence during the war in Gaza due to splits within the bloc between countries supporting Israel and those closer to the Palestinians. Ministers on Monday will discuss whether to drop proposals for possible sanctions on Israel including curbing trade ties after the Trump ceasefire deal. Israel is pushing for the measures to be dropped, but a raft of EU states argue they should be kept on the table to maintain pressure to secure the peace process.

Hamas insisted it was committed to returning all the hostage remains still unaccounted for under Gaza's ruins, as a Turkish official said specialists dispatched to help find bodies were awaiting Israel's authorisation to enter.Responding to a call from Hamas for help locating the bodies of the 19 hostages, buried under the rubble alongside an untold number of Palestinians, Ankara sent specialists to help in the search.A Turkish official told AFP on Friday that dozens of disaster response specialists were at the Egyptian side of the border awaiting a green light from the Israeli government to enter the war-shattered Palestinian territory.The 81-member team from Turkiye's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) is equipped with specialised search-and-rescue tools, including life-detection devices and trained search dogs."It remains unclear when Israel will allow the Turkish team to enter Gaza," the official said.Under a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas spearheaded by US President Donald Trump, Hamas returned 20 surviving hostages and the remains of nine of 28 known deceased hostages -- along with another body, which Israel said was not that of a former hostage.In exchange, Israel freed nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners from its jails and halted the military campaign that it launched in Gaza after Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack.A Hamas source told AFP the Turkish delegation is expected to enter Gaza by Sunday.The Turkish official noted that the recovery team's complicated mission included locating both Palestinian and hostage bodies.Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed on Thursday his determination to "secure the return of all hostages" after his defence minister warned that the military would restart the conflict if Hamas failed to do so.Hamas later insisted on "its commitment to the agreement and its implementation, including its keenness to hand over all remaining corpses".But it said the process "may require some time, as some of these corpses were buried in tunnels destroyed by the occupation, while others remain under the rubble of buildings it bombed and demolished".The families of the dead have fumed at Hamas's inability to deliver their loved ones' remains.The main campaign group advocating for the hostages' families has demanded that Israel "immediately halt the implementation of any further stages of the agreement as long as Hamas continues to blatantly violate its obligations".Trump appeared on Wednesday to call for patience when it came to the bodies' return, insisting Hamas was "actually digging" for hostages' remains.The ceasefire deal has so far seen the war grind to a halt after two years of agony for the hostages' families, and constant bombardment and hunger for Gazans.The UN's World Food Programme said on Friday it had been able to move close to 3,000 tonnes of food supplies into Gaza since the ceasefire took hold.But it cautioned it would take time to reverse the famine in the Gaza Strip, saying all crossings needed to be opened to "flood Gaza with food".Trump's 20-point plan for Gaza calls for renewed aid provision, with international organisations eagerly awaiting the reopening of southern Gaza's strategic Rafah crossing.The next phases of the truce should also include the disarmament of Hamas, the offer of amnesty to Hamas leaders who decommission their weapons and establishing the governance of post-war Gaza.The families of the surviving hostages have been able to rejoice in their return after two long years. Others have had to endure the agony of burying the returned remains of their loved ones.Mourners clutching Israeli flags lined the streets in Rishon Lezion on Friday for the funeral convoy of Inbar Hayman, whose body was returned on Wednesday.For many in Gaza, while there was relief that the bombing had stopped, the road to recovery felt impossible as people began clearing the rubble from their destroyed homes."I'm right under the threat of death. It could collapse at any moment," said Ahmad Saleh Sbeih, a Gaza City resident."But there is no choice. This is better than living on the street."The war has killed at least 67,967 people in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the United Nations considers credible.

The Israeli military said Tuesday that the remains of four deceased hostages returned by Hamas have been identified, including those of a Nepalese student.Separately, a Gaza hospital said it has received the bodies of 45 Palestinians that had been handed back by Israel, also as part of US President Donald Trump's plan to end the Gaza war.In a statement, the Israeli military named two of the victims as Guy Iluz, an Israeli national, and Bipin Joshi, an agriculture student from Nepal.The names of the other two hostages have not yet been released at the request of their families, the statement added.Iluz, who was 26 at the time of the attack, had been attending the Nova music festival when assault happened on October 7, 2023.Joshi, who was 22 at the time of the attack, was part of a Nepalese agricultural training group that had arrived in Israel three weeks before the Hamas assault.He was abducted from Kibbutz Alumim.Hamas returned the four bodies on Monday, following the release of all 20 surviving captives as part of the ceasefire deal brokered by Trump.Meanwhile, the bodies of 45 Palestinians that had been in Israeli custody were handed over to the Nasser Medical Centre in Gaza, the hospital said.Under the Trump deal, Israel was to turn over the bodies of 15 Palestinians for every deceased Israeli returned.Palestinian fighters are still holding the bodies of 24 hostages, which are expected to be returned under the terms of the ceasefire agreement.

Palestinian resistance movement Hamas freed the last living Israeli hostages from Gaza Monday under a ceasefire deal and Israel sent home busloads of Palestinian detainees, as US President Donald Trump told Israel's parliament that peace had arrived in the Middle East. The Israeli military said it had received all 20 hostages confirmed to be alive, after their transfer from Gaza by the Red Cross. The announcement prompted cheering, hugging and weeping among thousands waiting at "Hostage Square" in Tel Aviv. In Gaza, thousands of relatives, many weeping with joy, gathered at a hospital where buses brought home some of the nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees to be freed by Israel as part of the accord. "The skies are calm, the guns are silent, the sirens are still and the sun rises on a Holy Land that is finally at peace," Trump told the Knesset, Israel's parliament, saying a "long nightmare" for both Israelis and Palestinians was over. He later left for a summit in Egypt intended to cement the truce. The US, along with Egypt, Qatar and Turkiye, mediated what has been described as a first phase agreement between Israel and Hamas for a ceasefire and the release of hostages by Hamas and prisoners and detainees by Israel. Trump arrived in the Egyptian beach resort of Sharm el-Sheikh about an hour before sundown for the gathering of more than 20 world leaders, which he was to chair alongside President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. At the opening of the summit, Trump signed a document on the ceasefire deal with Egypt, Qatar and Turkiye. The ceasefire and partial Israeli withdrawal agreed last week halted one of Israel's biggest offensives of the war, an all-out assault on Gaza City that was killing scores of people per day. Since then, huge numbers of Palestinians have been able to return to the ruins of homes in the Gaza Strip, swathes of which were reduced to a wasteland by Israeli bombardment that killed 68,000 people. Among the immediate issues still to be resolved: recovering the remains of another 26 Israeli hostages believed to have died and two whose fates are unknown. Hamas says recovering the bodies could take time as not all burial sites are known. It handed over four bodies Monday. Aid supplies must be rushed into the enclave, where hundreds of thousands of people face famine. UN aid chief Tom Fletcher underlined the need to "get shelter and fuel to people who desperately need it and to massively scale up the food and medicine and other supplies going in". Beyond that, crucial issues have yet to be resolved, including how to govern and police Gaza, and the ultimate future of Hamas, which still rejects Israel's demands to disarm. Video footage captured emotional scenes of Israeli families receiving phone messages from their loved ones as they were being released, their faces lighting up with disbelief and hope after months of anguish. Palestinians meanwhile rushed to embrace prisoners freed by Israel. Several thousand gathered inside and around Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, some waving Palestinian flags, others holding photos of their relatives. "I am happy for our sons who are being freed, but we are still in pain for all those who have been killed by the occupation, and all the destruction that happened to our Gaza," a Gaza woman, Um Ahmed, told Reuters in a tearful voice message. Freed prisoners arrived in buses, some of them posing from the windows, flashing V-for-Victory signs. Israel was due to release 1,700 detainees it captured in Gaza, as well as 250 prisoners from its jails convicted or suspected of security offences. Samer Halabeya, a doctor freed from jail where he was serving a sentence for planning an attack that wounded an Israeli officer, stood by his weeping mother in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. "We hope that everyone gets freed," he said.

A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas held in Gaza for a third day on Sunday ahead of the expected release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners and the Gaza peace summit in Cairo. Thousands of Palestinians continued to travel north towards Gaza City, the focus of Israeli attacks over the past two months, hopeful the ceasefire would bring an end to the war. "There is a lot of joy among the people," said Abdou Abu Seada, adding that the joy was tempered by exhaustion after two years of war that has destroyed much of Gaza. Government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian said that Israel expected the hostages to start being released early Monday morning with the 20 living hostages to be released together. In the event that hostages were released earlier, Israel was ready to receive them, she said. Their release is to be followed later by the handover of bodies of the remaining 28 deceased hostages. Hamas will release its remaining hostages on Monday and will play no role in Gaza's future government, the group told AFP, as US President Donald Trump and other world leaders prepared to convene in Egypt for a major peace summit. Trump will first pass through Israel, addressing parliament and meeting with hostage families Monday before heading to Egypt's Sharm El-Sheikh for the summit, where a "document ending the war in the Gaza Strip" is expected to be signed, according to Cairo's foreign ministry. As anxious but relieved Israeli families counted down the hours until their loved ones' return, desperate Palestinians picked through the ruins of their homes in Gaza City and aid trucks queued to deliver badly needed supplies. The third day of the ceasefire saw some aid trucks cross into Gaza, but residents in Khan Yunis, in the south of the Strip, said some shipments were being ransacked by starving residents in chaotic scenes. "We don't want to live in a jungle. We demand aid be secured and respectfully distributed," said Mohammed Zarab. "Look at how the food is lying on the ground. Look! People and cars are trampling it." For Mahmud al-Muzain, another bystander, the seizure of the aid parcels showed that Gaza did not trust that the US-led negotiations would lead to a long-term peace. "Everyone fears the war will return. People steal the aid and store it in their homes," he told AFP. "We stockpile food out of fear and worry that the war will come back." Any optimism that 38-year-old Fatima Salem might have felt when Israeli forces withdrew from her neighbourhood in Gaza City was shattered when she returned home to find it gone. "I returned to Sheikh Radwan with my heart trembling," she told AFP. "My eyes kept searching for landmarks I had lost -- nothing looked the same, even the neighbours' houses were gone. "Despite the exhaustion and fear, I felt like I was coming back to my safe place. I missed the smell of my home, even if it's now just rubble. We will pitch a tent next to it and wait for reconstruction." The Israel Prison Service said it had transferred some Palestinian prisoners to other facilities ahead of their expected release. The Israeli Ministry of Justice has released the names of 250 Palestinians, convicted of murder and other serious crimes, who are to be freed under the deal. The list does not include senior Hamas commanders that the Islamist militant group had sought to free, or prominent figures from other factions such as Marwan Al Barghouti or Ahmed Saadat. Although that was not expected to derail the agreement, Hamas' prisoners information office said that talks with Israeli mediators over the list of prisoners to be freed were ongoing. Israel is also to release 1,700 Palestinians who have been detained in Gaza since October 7, 2023 and 22 Palestinian minors, along with the bodies of 360 militants. Israeli government spokesperson Bedrosian said the prisoners would be released once the living hostages reach Israeli territory. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that once the hostages were returned, the military would destroy underground tunnels in Gaza built by Hamas. Palestinians returning to northern Gaza have described widespread devastation. Rescue workers warned there could be unexploded ordnance and bombs in the area. Amjad Al Shawa, who heads a Palestinian organisation coordinating with aid groups, estimated 300,000 tents were needed to temporarily house 1.5 million displaced Gazans. "We couldn't believe the destruction we have seen," Rami Mohammad-Ali, 37, said by phone after walking 15 km with his son from Deir Al Balah to Gaza City. Israelis were looking forward keenly to Monday, when Hamas is expected to release its remaining 48 hostages, living and dead. Late Saturday, massive crowds gathered in Tel Aviv to support hostage families and cheer Trump's peace envoy, Steve Witkoff. Thousands packed "Hostage Square" -- the scene of many protests and vigils during the two years since Hamas's unprecedented October 7, 2023 attacks triggered the latest war -- chanting "Thank you Trump!". "My emotions are immense, there are no words to describe them -- for me, for us, for all of Israel, which wants the hostages home and waits to see them all return," said Einav Zangauker, mother of 25-year-old hostage Matan Zangauker. Hamas will free the captives, 20 of whom Israel believes are still alive, in exchange for nearly 2,000 prisoners held in Israeli jails. "According to the signed agreement, the prisoner exchange is set to begin on Monday morning," Hamas official Osama Hamdan told AFP in an interview. After Trump's visit to Israel on Monday, he and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will chair a summit of leaders from more than 20 countries in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, the Egyptian presidency announced. The meeting will aim "to end the war in the Gaza Strip, enhance efforts to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East, and usher in a new era of regional security", it said. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said he will attend, as has Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer, his counterparts from Italy and Spain, Giorgia Meloni and Pedro Sanchez, and French President Emmanuel Macron. Hamas and Israel are not expected to take part. Despite the apparent breakthrough, mediators still have the tricky task of securing a longer-term political solution that will see Hamas hand over its weapons and step aside from running Gaza. A Hamas source close to the group's negotiating committee told AFP on Sunday that it would not participate in post-war Gaza governance. "Hamas will not participate at all in the transitional phase, which means it has relinquished control of the Strip, but it remains a fundamental part of the Palestinian fabric," the source said, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. But the official pushed back on calls for Hamas to lay down its weapons. "Hamas agrees to a long-term truce, and for its weapons not to be used at all during this period, except in the event of an Israeli attack on Gaza," the source said. Under the Trump plan, as Israel conducts a phased withdrawal from Gaza's cities, it will be replaced by a multi-national force from Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, coordinated by a US-led command centre in Israel. Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed at least 67,682 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the United Nations considers credible.

Lebanese President General Joseph Aoun welcomed the agreement reached between Israel and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in its first phase, aimed at ending the war on the Gaza Strip. In a statement issued by the Lebanese Presidency, President Aoun expressed hope that the agreement would serve as a first step toward a permanent ceasefire and the alleviation of the humanitarian suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza. He emphasized the importance of sustained international and regional efforts to achieve a comprehensive and just peace in the region—one that guarantees the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, in line with the Arab Peace Initiative adopted at the Beirut Arab Summit in 2002. President Aoun also expressed hope that Israel would respond positively to calls from Arab and international leaders to halt its aggressive policies in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria, in order to create the necessary conditions for a just, comprehensive, and lasting peace that would ensure stability in the Middle East.