A 72-hour countdown for Hamas to release the remaining living Israeli hostages it holds has begun as the first stage of a ceasefire with Israel takes effect.
Israeli troops began pulling back its positions in Gaza on Friday, allowing thousands of displaced Palestinians to return to the ruins of their abandoned homes.
Under Donald Trump’s peace deal, Hamas has 72 hours to release the 20 living Israeli hostages it is still holding once Israel’s military withdraws from roughly half of Gaza.
The countdown began on Saturday as both Israel and the US said the necessary withdrawal had been completed.
The US President said the hostages are due to “come back” on Monday.
In exchange, Israel will free 250 Palestinians serving long terms in its prisons and 1,700 detainees captured during the war. Hundreds of trucks per day are expected to surge into Gaza carrying food and medical aid.
Israel's government ratified the ceasefire with Hamas in the early hours of Friday.
The potentially historic breakthrough was soon followed by the sight of a huge column of people filing on foot north along the coastal road overlooking sandy beaches towards Gaza City, the enclave's biggest urban area, which had been under attack just days ago in one of Israel's biggest offensives of the war.
But even as Gazans headed home, questions loomed about whether the ceasefire and hostage-prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas, the biggest step yet toward ending two years of war, would lead to a lasting peace under Trump's 20-point plan to end the war.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump expressed confidence the ceasefire would hold, saying: "They're all tired of the fighting."
He said he believed there was a "consensus" on the next steps but acknowledged some details would still have to be worked out.
Trump said he would head to the Middle East in the coming days and planned to address Israel's parliament in Jerusalem.
Hamas has said it rejects “foreign guardianship” of Gaza, insisting that governance of the territory is purely an internal Palestinian matter.
The group issued a statement issued on Friday, presenting a potential challenge to the next phase of Trump’s peace deal, which envisages an international body - the "Board of Peace" - playing a key role in Gaza's post-war administration.
The plan calls for Trump to lead it and includes former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
However Hamas is insisting that governance of Gaza is purely an internal Palestinian matter.
But a senior Hamas official said that Palestinians have "very bad memories" of Mr Blair, who took the UK into the US-led war on Iraq in 2003.
“Palestinians have a lot of independent leaders who can do the job in the best interests of the Palestinian people,” Dr Basem Naim told Sky News.
Israelis and Palestinians alike rejoiced after the deal was announced, to end two years of war in which over 67,000 Palestinians have been killed, and to return the last hostages seized by Hamas in the deadly attack that provoked it.
The exiled Gaza chief of Hamas, Khalil Al-Hayya, said he had received guarantees from the United States and other mediators that the war was over.
During the Hamas-led attack on Israeli communities and a music festival on October 7, 2023, fighters killed 1,200 people and captured 251 hostages.
Twenty hostages are still believed to be alive in Gaza, while 26 are presumed dead and the fate of two is unknown. Hamas has indicated that recovering the bodies of the dead may take longer than releasing those who are alive.
