Closing post
We’re about to shut this file and move our live coverage to a new blog here. A summary of the latest key developments is here, and a new full report here. Thanks for reading.
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World leaders are gathering in Egypt to discuss the next steps towards peace.
Donald Trump is due to arrive in Israel on Monday to address the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, before travelling to Sharm el-Sheikh for the leaders’ summit he will head with headed by Trump and Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, would also attend the summit, an Axios reporter said on Sunday, citing a senior Palestinian official.
Iran, however, said it would not attend after confirming it had been invited by Egypt. Foreign minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X:
While favoring diplomatic engagement, neither President Pezeshkian nor I can engage with counterparts who have attacked the Iranian People and continue to threaten and sanction us.
Leaders from more than 20 countries will reportedly attend the Egypt summit on peace in Gaza and the broader Middle East.
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Thousands of Palestinians have continued to travel north towards the devastated Gaza City – the focus of Israeli attacks over the past two months – hopeful the ceasefire will bring an end to the war.
“There is a lot of joy among the people,” said Abdou Abu Seada, a Gaza resident who added that the joy was tempered by exhaustion after two years of war that has destroyed much of the Palestinian territory.
As we also cover in a fresh report, Donald Trump said the war in Gaza had ended and the Middle East was going to “normalise”.
“The war is over, you understand that,” the US president told reporters onboard Air Force One as he began the flight from Washington DC to Israel.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised statement: “Tomorrow is the beginning of a new path. A path of building, a path of healing, and I hope a path of uniting hearts.”
An international task force will start working to locate deceased hostages who are not returned within 72 hours, says Israel’s coordinator for the hostages and the missing, Gal Hirsch.
As reported, all 20 living hostages are expected to be released at one time to the Red Cross, then driven to a military base to reunite with families or, if needed, immediately to a hospital, an Israeli government spokesperson has said.
After the hostages were freed, Israel was ready to release about 2,000 Palestinian detainees and receive the 28 hostages believed to be dead.
The AP quoted US vice-president JD Vance as telling told Fox News: “The reality is, some of the hostages we may never get back.”
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As well as declaring “the war is over”, Donald Trump added that he thought the ceasefire would hold.
He also said he would be “proud” to visit Gaza.
The US president made the comments as he departed the US to visit Israel and Egypt on Monday to mark the ceasefire announced last week.
Israel has said it expects all living hostages held in Gaza to be released on Monday under the US-brokered ceasefire deal with Hamas.
“In a few hours, we will all be reunited,” Israel’s military chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, said in a statement cited by the Associated Press.
Palestinians, meanwhile, are awaiting the release of hundreds of prisoners held in Israel and a surge of aid into the famine-stricken territory.
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The day so far
Israel expects all 20 living hostages to be released by Hamas tomorrow at the same time. Shosh Bedrosian, a spokesperson for Benjamin Netanyahu, said “Israel is prepared and is ready to immediately receive all of our hostages. The release of our hostages will begin early Monday morning.”
Hamas is insisting seven Palestinian leaders should be freed in the hostage-prisoner swap, sources close to negotiators told Agence France-Presse.
Leaders from more than 20 countries will attend tomorrow’s Gaza “peace summit” in Egypt’s Red Sea resort city Sharm el-Sheikh. The summit will finalize the agreement aimed at ending Israel’s war on Gaza.
Trump departed late this afternoon to Jerusalem to speak at the Knesset roughly at the same time as the hostage-detainee swap is expected to happen, as well as meeting families of the hostages. He told reporters that “the war is over” in Gaza as he boarded Air Force One.
At least 67,806 Palestinian people have been killed and 170,066 others injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement today. Most of the people killed have been civilians, many of whom were women and children.
Aid agencies said, in line with the terms in the ceasefire agreement, that they were preparing to “flood” Gaza with food and other essential supplies. Dozens of aid trucks entered Gaza on Sunday amid hope for a surge in humanitarian relief.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he hopes for a similar agreement to the Israel-Hamas ceasefire to put an end to the ongoing war between his own country and Russia.
Trump officially declared that the “war is over” in Gaza as he boarded Air Force One.
The US president is due to arrive in Israel shortly after the expected release of the hostages by Hamas. He will address parliament before heading to Egypt to host the major peace summit.
“The war is over. OK? You understand that?” Trump told reporters when asked if he was confident that the conflict between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas was finished.
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An Israeli military official said that not all deceased hostages held by Palestinian militants in Gaza are expected to be returned to Israel on Monday.
“Unfortunately this is something we anticipate that not all fallen hostages will be returned tomorrow,” the official told reporters during a briefing late on Sunday.
Earlier Sunday, Shosh Bedrosian, spokeswoman for the prime minister’s office, had said an “international body” would be established to locate the remains of captives not returned as part of Monday’s exchange.
Vice president JD Vance also spoke about the possibility of retrieving the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages from Gaza in an interview on Fox News. “I think that we will eventually get most of the bodies, but we won’t get all of them,” Vance said.
Trump said that his Middle East trip would be “very special” as he headed to Israel and Egypt to celebrate the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal.
“This is going to be a very special time,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews just before boarding Air Force One. “Everybody’s very excited about this moment in time.”
The president continued, saying “there are 500,000 people yesterday and today in Israel and also the Muslim and Arab countries all cheering. Everybody’s cheering at one time. That’s never happened before.”
He added: “Usually, if you have one cheering, the other isn’t, the other is the opposite. This is the first time everybody is amazed and they’re thrilled, and it’s an honor to be involved, and we’re going to have an amazing time, and it’s going to be something that’s never, never happened before.”
Canadian prime minister Mark Carney will travel to Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, to attend the Gaza summit, his office announced on Sunday. According to Carney’s office, the prime minister is scheduled to depart for Egypt at 6.30pm on Sunday.
Meanwhile, US president Trump has already left the White House for Joint Base Andrews in Maryland shortly after 4pm where he will depart to Jerusalem and then Egypt.
World leaders from more than 20 countries are set to attend the summit on Monday, where a signing ceremony for the ceasefire plan is expected to take place.
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The mediating nations for the ceasefire deal in Gaza are to sign a document guaranteeing the agreement at Monday’s summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, a diplomatic source told Agence France-Presse.
“The signatories will be the guarantors – (the) US, Egypt, Qatar and likely Turkey,” the diplomat briefed on the signing ceremony told AFP on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive arrangements, after the Egyptian foreign ministry earlier said a document ending the war in Gaza was expected to be signed during the gathering hosted by the US and Egypt.
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President Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan gave credit on Sunday to President Trump for the Gaza deal in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union.
Sullivan, who served as Biden’s national security adviser between 2021 and January this year, said: “It’s a good thing that a ceasefire is in place, that the hostages will be coming out, and that a surge of aid will be going in. On a very human level, we should all take a moment to express gratitude for this moment and hope that everything that unfolds from here is positive. I’m feeling very good this morning, although I won’t feel totally comfortable until we see this fully implemented.”
Asked if Trump deserved credit for the deal, Sullivan said: “Of course he does. I give credit to President Trump, [US special envoy Steve] Witloff, Kushner, and Rubio. These are hard jobs … Achieving something like today takes a village, determination, and hard work. I offer credit for that. The question now is whether we can ensure this sticks as we move forward. There will be no long-term solution if there is not a credible pathway to a Palestinian state, and I hope the administration will adhere to that.”
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Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged controversy over his handling of the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal Sunday, but called for their imminent release to be a moment of unity.
“This is an emotional evening, an evening of tears, an evening of joy, because tomorrow our children will return to our borders,” the Israeli leader said, quoting a biblical verse.
“Tomorrow is the beginning of a new path - a path of rebuilding, a path of healing, and, I hope, a path of united hearts,” he said, in a televised address.
He also warned that “the campaign is not over,” adding: “there are still very great security challenges ahead of us.”
Iran says it was invited to the Gaza summit in Egypt but has not confirmed whether it will attend, according to state media.
Tehran confirmed on Sunday that it received an official invitation from Cairo to attend the summit in Sharm El-Sheikh but did not say if it would send a representative.
At a cabinet meeting, foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, briefed the government on Egypt’s invitation to president Masoud Pezeshkian. “Iran’s subsequent refusal, and a later invitation extended to the foreign minister,” IRNA state news agency reported, without disclosing whether Araghchi would attend.
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Hamas’ government media office is rejecting a BBC report about the deployment of 7,000 new Hamas operatives to reassert its dominance in Gaza where the Israeli military has withdrawn from.
The Hamas statement says: “This information has no basis in truth.” It further says the claims “reflect deliberate misinformation and false narratives intended to mislead the public”.
According to the BBC report, Hamas mobilised its security forces via phone calls and texts, informing its operatives that they were required to “cleanse Gaza of outlaws and collaborators with Israel” and to report for duty within 24 hours.
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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said today that he hopes a similar agreement to the Israel-Hamas ceasefire can be orchestrated to put an end to the ongoing war between his own country and Russia.
“This is real success,” Zelenskyy said on Fox News. “It gives signals for us and hope that with such pressure, what president Trump used in the Middle East to make peace, and I hope that he will use the same instruments, even more, to pressure Putin to stop his war in Ukraine.”
Ukraine has been at war with Russia for more than 1,300 days since Putin’s invasion in February 2022. Trump has faced particular difficulty with ending the conflict, expressing frustration on several occasions at both Putin and Zelenskyy.
Israel’s army chief, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir said that the country achieved a “victory over Hamas” through the military pressure exerted over the past two years, combined with diplomatic efforts.
“The military pressure we applied over the past two years, together with complementary diplomatic measures, constitute a victory over Hamas,” Zamir said in a televised statement.
“We will continue to act in order to shape a security reality that ensures the Gaza Strip no longer poses a threat to the State of Israel and its civilians ... Through our operations, we are reshaping the Middle East and our security strategy for the years ahead,” he added.
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The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon says one of its members was “lightly” wounded by an Israeli grenade dropped near a UN position in the country’s south.
“Just before noon yesterday, an Israeli drone dropped a grenade that exploded near a UNIFIL position in Kafer Kela. One peacekeeper was lightly injured and received medical assistance,” a statement from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) reads. “Before the grenade was dropped, peacekeepers had observed two drones flying near their position.”
It continues: “This is the second IDF grenade attack on peacekeepers this month. It represents another serious violation of resolution 1701 and concerning disregard for the safety of peacekeepers implementing their mandate from the Security Council. We again call on the IDF to cease attacks on or near peacekeepers, who are working to rebuild the stability that both Israel and Lebanon have committed to restore.”
Netanyahu’s spokesperson has responded to the strong negative reaction from the massive crowd at a rally in Hostages Square in Tel Aviv last night, where the mention of the Israeli prime minister’s name drew loud boos from a large number of people in attendance.
Spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian told a press briefing today that Netanyahu “has got us to this point in cooperation and coordination with President Trump,” adding: “Prime Minister Netanyahu took risks, and those risks led us to this point.”
She added: “The first phase of this plan is releasing all of our hostages, and that was a dedication and a promise he made to those families, and here I am standing today telling you that the prime minister is following through, following through on that promise.”
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The Palestinian Authority is ready to work with US president Donald Trump and former British prime minister Tony Blair on their effort to consolidate the Gaza ceasefire and start rebuilding, a senior Palestinian official told Blair on Sunday.
Trump’s plan for ending the Gaza war holds out the prospect of the Palestinian Authority, based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and led by president Mahmoud Abbas, eventually taking control of Gaza, but only after it completes reforms. Abbas lost control of Gaza to the Hamas militant group in 2007.
Trump’s proposal says Hamas must end its rule of Gaza and foresees the territory being run by a Palestinian technocratic committee supervised by an international body chaired by him and including Blair.
Hussein al-Sheikh, deputy head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said he had met Blair to discuss the day after in Gaza and making Trump’s plan for “stopping the Gaza war and establishing lasting peace in the region a success”.
“We have confirmed our readiness to work with President Trump, Mr Blair and the partners to consolidate the ceasefire, the entry of aid, the release of hostages and prisoners, and then start with the recovery and reconstruction,” Sheikh wrote on X. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected Gaza being run by the Palestinian Authority.
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A Gaza PhD student who won a fully funded scholarship to the University of Glasgow has spoken of her heartbreak at her family being denied entry to the UK.
In May, Manar al-Houbi received confirmation of her successful application. “It felt almost too good to be true,” she said. As well as her tuition fees, her scholarship from a charity, the Council for At Risk Academics (Cara), covers housing and living costs for her and all family members.
She completed visa applications for the family, but last month, just before her studies were due to start, she received an email from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), saying that her family would not be allowed to travel with her.
As part of a UK crackdown on immigration, most international students are not allowed to bring their dependants with them. However, there are exceptions for full-time PhD students such as Houbi, whose scholarship and visa permit her to bring her family.
You can read the full story here:
Hamas insists seven Palestinian leaders be freed in hostage-prisoner swap, sources say
Hamas is insisting seven Palestinian leaders should be freed in the hostage-prisoner swap, sources close to negotiators have told AFP.
“Hamas insists that the final list include seven senior leaders, most notably Marwan Barghouti, Ahmad Saadat, Ibrahim Hamed, and Abbas Al-Sayyed,” a source said (see post at 09.10 for details about Barghouti and Saadat).
We have not been able to independently verify this information yet and it is unclear if this demand risks derailing the exchange tomorrow.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has confirmed it won’t release Barghouti, who is serving multiple life sentences .
This post was amended at 16.30 BST to clarify that Marwan Barghouti rejected the jurisdiction of the court and denied the charges against him.
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Trump to meet with hostages, JD Vance confirms, as he says 'we are on cusp of a sustainable Middle East peace'
US vice-president JD Vance confirmed that Donald Trump would travel to the Middle East on Sunday to meet with Israeli hostages who will be released under the first phase of the Israel-Hamas peace agreement. He added that the Middle East was now on the “cusp of a sustainable peace”.
“Knock on wood we feel very confident that hostages will be released, and that the president is actually traveling to the Middle East, likely this evening in order to meet them and greet them in person,” Vance told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday.
Vance called the first step in the implementation of the 20-point peace agreement, “a big day for their families, but I think more importantly, it’s a big day for the entire world.”
He said the deal was “a very tall task” and Trump had “pursued a very non-traditional diplomacy with people who were not 40-year diplomats, but people who brought a fresh perspective to it.”
“We are now on the cusp of a sustainable peace in the Middle East,” Vance added.
But he warned that phase two of the agreement, which includes Hamas agreeing to hand over weapons and the administration of Gaza to a Palestinian body of independent technocrats, “is going to take consistent leverage and consistent pressure from the President of the United States on down”.
Vance was asked how long 200 US troops would remain in the area. “These are not troops who are going to be put in Gaza, but they’re troops who are already at Central Command (Al Udeid airbase in Qatar). They’ve been at that base for many, many years, and they’re going to help monitor and mediate this peace.”
But Vance said:
Inevitably, they’re going to be conflicts here. There are going to be things that the people in Gaza disagree with Israel about, and the Israelis disagree with the Gulf Arab states about.
We see our role really as mediating some of those disputes and the pressure stays on everybody to achieve a durable and lasting piece.
Vance predicted that Arab countries and Muslim-majority countries, including Indonesia, would provide troops to ensure Gaza’s security and that would “make it possible to rebuild, possible to dismantle terrorist networks and possible to ensure a lasting peace.”
The US, he said, “is going to continue to play our mediation role, and I think that’s a very, very good place for all of us to be.”
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Here are some of the latest images being sent to us over the newswires from Gaza:
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Death toll from Israeli attacks on Gaza reaches 67,806, says health ministry
At least 67,806 Palestinian people have been killed and 170,066 others injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
Most of the people killed have been civilians, many of whom were women and children.
In a statement, the health ministry said the bodies of 124 people, including 117 recovered from rubble, arrived in hospitals across the Gaza Strip over the latest 24-hour reporting period. It said 33 people had been injured.
The health ministry, whose figures the UN finds credible, added:
A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, as ambulance and civil defence teams are unable to reach them so far.
Trump to address the Israeli parliament on Monday
My colleague William Christou has some detail about Donald Trump’s diplomatic movements tomorrow in what will likely be a histroic day:
Trump will visit Jerusalem on Monday to speak at the Knesset roughly at the same time as the hostage-detainee swap, as well as meeting families of the hostages.
Trump will then fly to Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt where he will co-chair a “peace summit” attended by the leaders of more than 20 countries aimed at finalising a permanent truce in Gaza.
Though the path ahead for the deal was murky, Trump said he expected a ceasefire would continue. “They’re all tired of the fighting,” he told reporters at the White House, adding that there was a “consensus” on the way forward.
The hostage-detainee swap is the first step in Trump’s 20-point plan to end the war in Gaza. A ceasefire has been in place since Friday afternoon, but most of the details of the Trump plan need to be negotiated before a lasting end to the war is established.
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Palestinian prisoners to be freed after all Gaza hostages confirmed to be in Israel - Netanyahu's office
Israel will begin releasing Palestinian prisoners once it has confirmation that all hostages held in Gaza have arrived in the country, Shosh Bedrosian, a spokesperson for Benjamin Netanyahu, added.
“Palestinian prisoners will be released once Israel has confirmation that all of our hostages set to be released tomorrow are across the border into Israel,” she told journalists in Tel Aviv.
During previous ceasefires, the identities of the remains of some hostages were confirmed after their return to Israel.
In exchange for the hostages, Israel will release nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees, the vast majority of whom will be sent to Gaza or exiled to neighbouring countries.
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Israel expects all 20 living hostages to be released by Hamas tomorrow at the same time
Shosh Bedrosian, a spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, gave the following statement to the media about the logistics of how the hostage release will work tomorrow morning:
Israel is prepared and is ready to immediately receive all of our hostages. The release of our hostages will begin early Monday morning. We are expecting all 20 of our living hostages to be released together at one time to the Red Cross and transported among six to eight vehicles without any sick displays by Hamas, the terror organisation.
The hostages will then be driven to forces inside of Israeli controlled parts of Gaza and then transferred to the Re’im base in southern Israel, where they will then reunite with their families.
Israel is ready … if a living hostage requires any urgent medical attention, they will be brought to a medical facility immediately.
The prime minister instructed Gal Hirsch, the coordinator for the captives and the missing, to arrange with the ICRC to have a convoy of ambulances ready for our hostages and all equipment needed in case a hostage needs immediate medical support, in which case, both Soroka and Barzilai hospitals will be on standby.
There will be medical staff accompanying the hostages during their entire journey back to Israel. From Re’im, the hostages will travel with their families to one of three main hospitals.
The bodies of the deceased hostages will be put in coffins draped with Israeli flags and subsequently brought to a forensic institute for identification, the Israeli government spokesperson added.
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JD Vance says Gaza hostages could be released 'any moment'
US vice-president JD Vance said on Sunday that Israeli hostages could be released from Gaza “any moment now”.
“It really should be any moment now,” the vice-president told NBC News’ Meet the Press programme when asked about the timing for the release of the hostages by Hamas.
JD Vance also said that when Trump visits Israel tomorrow morning he plans to greet the hostages after Hamas has released them.
“You can’t say exactly the moment they will be released, but we have every expectation … that he will be greeting the hostages,” he said.
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An Israeli government spokesperson has said that the release of hostages held in Gaza will begin early Monday morning, Reuters reports.
All 20 living hostages are expected to be released together at one time, she added.
She said Israel is ready to receive the bodies of the 28 deceased hostages once the living hostages have been returned.
Earlier Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Sharren Haskel, suggested that Hamas might start freeing hostages as early as tonight.
Associated Press footage showed dozens of trucks crossing the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing with the Gaza Strip, the news wire said. The Egyptian Red Crescent said they carried medical supplies, tents, blankets, food and fuel.
The trucks will head to the inspection area in the Kerem Shalom crossing for screening by Israeli troops.
Abeer Etifa, a spokeswoman for the World Food Program, said workers were clearing roads inside Gaza to facilitate delivery.
The Israeli defense body in charge of humanitarian aid in Gaza, COGAT, said that the amount of aid entering the Gaza Strip is expected to increase to around 600 trucks per day, as stipulated in the agreement.
Egypt said it is sending 400 aid trucks into Gaza today. The trucks will have to be inspected by Israeli forces before being allowed in.
The third day of the ceasefire saw some aid trucks cross into Gaza, AFP reports, but residents in Khan Younis, 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 said. “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 said. “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.”
More than 67,000 Palestinian people have been killed by Israeli attacks since the war began, according to the territory’s health ministry, most of them civilians.
Much of the territory has been reduced to rubble and its infrastructure destroyed by Israeli aerial bombardments.
Only 1.5% of cropland in Gaza has been left able to be farmed, with water and soil left polluted by munitions and fires.
The war is considered by many legal experts as a genocide against the civilian population of Gaza. It is a claim Israel denies, despite the evidence.
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Roughly 200 American troops will be sent to help support and monitor the ceasefire deal, according to US officials.
Senior US officials told reporters that 200 troops will initially be on the ground with a “civil-military coordination center” operated by US Central Command to help facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid as well as logistical and security assistance into the devastated territory, the Associated Press reported.
Hamas may start freeing hostages tonight, Israel's deputy foreign minister says
Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Sharren Haskel, has suggested to Sky News that Hamas might start freeing hostages as early as tonight. There has been no confirmation of this by Hamas.
Haskel said:
I think they [Hamas] might start even releasing them tonight. So, earlier than expected. We really hope so. We know there’s been immense pressure on Hamas, including the two countries like Qatar and Turkey, who have the means to put pressure on Hamas to release them. And we really hope to see them as quickly as possible.
Netanyahu says Israel ready for 'immediate' reception of hostages
Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said that Israel is ready for the “immediate” reception of all Gaza hostages.
“Israel is prepared and ready to immediately receive all of our hostages,” he said in a statement after a meeting with the coordinator for the hostage coordinator Gal Hirsch.
It isn’t clear if this means Israel is expecting a release today, rather than tomorrow, as has previously been reported.
Under the ceasefire plan’s terms, Hamas has until 12:00 local time (09:00 GMT) on Monday to release all 20 living hostages. This will be in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
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We have a bit more information about what to expect at tomorrow’s summit in Egypt (see post at 09.50 for more details).
The Egyptian foreign ministry has said in a fresh statement that a “document ending the war in the Gaza Strip” was expected to be signed during the “historic” gathering.
The summit was aimed at inaugurating “a new chapter of peace and security … and alleviating the suffering of the Palestinian people” in Gaza, it said in a statement.
Hamas will not govern post-war Gaza, source says
A Hamas source close to the Palestinian militant group’s negotiating committee has told AFP that it will not participate in postwar Gaza governance.
“For Hamas, the governance of the Gaza Strip is a closed issue. 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 told AFP.
Under Trump’s plan, Gaza’s governance would be passed to a temporary transitional body in the form of a “technocratic and apolitical Palestinian committee”, which would in turn be overseen and supervised by an international “Board of Peace”, headed by the US president.
The board would include other heads of state and international officials, including the former British prime minister, Tony Blair.
That body would organise and set the framework for funding the redevelopment of Gaza while the Palestinian Authority, the political entity nominally in charge of Palestinian affairs in the West Bank, had undergone a process of reform.
Hamas, however, has said, at least publicly, that it will not disarm – a key point in Trump’s ceasefire plan.
“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 added.
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In a post on X, Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, has said that his country’s “big challenge” after the release of the Israeli hostages this week will be “the destruction of all Hamas terror tunnels in Gaza”.
Katz wrote:
Israel’s great challenge after the phase of returning the hostages will be the destruction of all of Hamas’s terror tunnels in Gaza, directly by the IDF and through the international mechanism to be established under the leadership and supervision of the United States.
This is the primary significance of implementing the agreed-upon principle of demilitarizing Gaza and neutralizing Hamas of its weapons. I have instructed the IDF to prepare for carrying out the mission.
My colleague Oliver Holmes has this detail about how agencies are hoping to bring in much needed aid to Palestinians in Gaza (you can read his full story here):
Aid agencies are hoping Israel will now stick to Trump’s 20-point plan, which said the entry and distribution of aid in the Gaza Strip should “proceed without interference”.
On Saturday, the Italian defence minister said the Rafah crossing, a crucial movement point between Gaza and Egypt for aid trucks but also people, will reopen on Tuesday. Israel took control of the border post last year.
Rafah “will be opened alternately in two directions: exit towards Egypt and entry towards Gaza”, Guido Crosetto said.
With the UN returning to a lead role in humanitarian assistance, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US- and Israeli-backed private contractor scheme, appeared to be winding down.
The programme was widely condemned as it forced people towards food distribution sites where they were shot in large numbers by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). One UN official called it a “sadistic death trap”.
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Dozens of aid trucks enter Gaza amid hope for a surge in humanitarian relief
Many Palestinian people have faced starvation and have had to endure extreme hunger as the UN and other organisations have faced massive logistical obstacles including widespread looting, Israeli bombardments, Israel’s administrative restrictions and bureaucracy and infrastructure damaged by Israeli attacks within Gaza.
Aid agencies said, in line with the terms in the ceasefire agreement, that they were preparing to “flood” Gaza with food and other essential supplies.
At least 600 trucks are needed every day – at a minimum – to start addressing Gaza’s dire humanitarian crisis, according to the UN.
Palestinian people in Gaza have received only a trickle of aid over recent months. During the war, Israel shut down entry and exit routes, largely blocking off food and medicine, which in turn caused a famine in large parts of Gaza.
Dozens of aid trucks have begun entering Gaza this morning, according to BBC News, with more expected to follow.
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What world leaders will be attending the Egyptian summit tomorrow?
Leaders from more than 20 countries will attend tomorrow’s Gaza “peace summit” in Egypt’s Red Sea resort city Sharm el-Sheikh. The summit will finalise the agreement aimed at ending Israel’s war on Gaza.
It will be chaired by the US president, Donald Trump, and the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. Here are some of the other leaders who are expected to attend:
French President: Emmanuel Macron
Turkish President: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
UK’s prime minister: Keir Starmer
Spanish prime minister: Pedro Sánchez
Italian prime minister: Giorgia Meloni
European council president: Antonio Costa
UN secretary-general: António Guterres
Jordan’s King Abdullah II
Leaders or foreign ministers from Germany, Qatar, the UAE, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Indonesia are also expected to participate, according to Axios.
It is unclear whether Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu would participate in the summit, while Hamas has confirmed it will not take part.
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Palestinian people continue to return to destroyed neighbourhoods as ceasefire holds
More Palestinian people, many of whom have been displaced several times during the Israeli assault, are continuing to head back to Gaza City and to the north of the territory as the ceasefire with Israel holds.
They are mostly returning to rubble as relentless Israeli airstrikes have destroyed much of the property and infrastructure across Gaza over the last two years.
More than 500,000 Palestinian people had returned to Gaza City by Saturday evening, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency.
“We walked for hours, and every step was filled with fear and anxiety for my home,” Raja Salmi, 52, told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency.
When she reached the al-Rimal neighbourhood, she found her house utterly destroyed. “I stood before it and cried. All those memories are now just dust,” she said.
Nearly half a million Palestinian people living in north Gaza were displaced by Israel’s recent military assault into Gaza City, and many were eager to return to their homes.
In the south of Gaza, thousands left the crowded coastal strip of al-Mawasi to travel inland to the partly ruined city of Khan Younis in the south, as my colleagues note in this story.
As we mentioned in the opening summary, Israel is expected to release about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, including 250 serving long sentences for serious security offences.
Hamas, in exchange, is expected to release 20 living hostages, followed by the return of the bodies of 28 deceased hostages.
On Friday, the Israeli justice ministry published the names of 250 prisoners to be freed, but excluded several high-profile prisoners, including Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Saadat.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has confirmed it refuses to release Barghouti.
Barghouti is a senior figure in Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement who is hugely popular in the occupied West Bank and Gaza and has frequently been talked of as a future leader.
Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, told the Al Jazeera TV network that the militant group insists on the release of Barghouti and other high-profile figures and that it was in discussions with mediators.
Saadat has been the general secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) for more than two decades.
He was accused of organising the 2001 assassination of Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi, an ultranationalist who called for the mass expulsion of Palestinian people.
Saadat and four PFLP activists directly involved in the killing were eventually arrested by Palestinian police. In April 2002, a makeshift court sentenced the four to prison terms ranging from one to 18 years. Saadat was not charged, with Palestinian officials saying at the time they did not believe he was involved in the killing.
In an internationally brokered agreement that year, he was transferred to a Palestinian jail in the West Bank city of Jericho. In 2006, fearing he might be released, Israel raided the prison and took him and other Palestinians into custody. He was sentenced to 30 years in 2008. He is now in his early 70s.
Updated
Aid relief scaled up as Hamas confirms it will begin releasing Israeli hostages on Monday morning
Hamas will begin releasing Israeli hostages held in Gaza tomorrow morning, a senior official from the Palestinian militant group has told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency, as the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas continues to hold.
Israel’s military says it has completed the first phase of its withdrawal from Gaza, after the ceasefire, brokered by the US, Qatar, Egypt and Turkey, came into effect on Friday morning.
Under its terms, Hamas has until 12:00 local time (09:00 GMT) on Monday to release all 20 living hostages. This will be in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
“According to the signed agreement, the prisoner exchange is set to begin on Monday morning as agreed,” Hamas official Osama Hamdan told AFP.
The US president, Donald Trump, and his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, will then chair a summit of more than 20 countries in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-sheikh on Monday afternoon.
It 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 and stability,” the Egyptian presidency said.
The developments come as aid groups begin scaling up relief efforts in Gaza, parts of which have endured famine conditions and starvation because Israel denied and obstructed humanitarian aid from entering into the territory.
There are reports of aid trucks having arrived to southern Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt this morning.
Under the terms of the first phase of the deal, aid is meant to surge into Gaza, and humanitarian groups are preparing to send in about 600 truckloads of food and medical supplies a day.
We will have more on this later. Stick with us throughout the day as we provide the latest updates and analysis on how the terms of the ceasefire plan unfold on the ground.
