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GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Hamas will begin releasing Israeli hostages held in Gaza on Monday morning, a top official from the Palestinian militant group told AFP, before US President Donald Trump chairs an international summit in Egypt on his peace plan for the region.
As part of the deal’s first phase, Hamas, whose deadly attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023 sparked the conflict, will free the captives, 20 of whom Israel believes are still alive, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
“According to the signed agreement, the prisoner exchange is set to begin on Monday morning as agreed,” Hamas official Osama Hamdan told AFP in an interview Saturday.
Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi will then chair a summit of more than 20 countries in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday afternoon, 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 and stability,” 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 Miloni and Pedro Sanchez, and French President Emmanuel Macron.
There was no immediate word on whether Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be there while Hamas said it would not take part as it had “acted principally through... Qatari and Egyptian mediators” during talks, Hamas political bureau member Hossam Badran said.
Despite the apparent breakthrough, mediators still have the tricky task of securing a longer-term political solution that will see Hamas hand in weapons and step aside from governing Gaza.
Badran said the second phase of Trump’s plan “contains many complexities and difficulties” while one Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said disarming was “out of the question.”

Multinational force

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, Turkiye and the United Arab Emirates, coordinated by a US-led command center in Israel.
On Saturday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Admiral Brad Cooper, Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner visited Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were again on the move, returning to their devastated homes.
Witkoff, Kushner and Trump’s daughter Ivanka then went on to Tel Aviv to attend a gathering with the families of the remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza, where crowds shouted “Thank you Trump.”
Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is one of about 20 hostages believed to still be alive, said: “We will continue to shout and fight until everyone is home.”
“We finally feel hope, but we cannot and will not stop now,” added Zairo Shachar Mohr Munder, whose uncle Abraham was abducted during the Hamas attack and his body recovered in August.
Hamas has until noon on Monday to hand over 47 remaining hostages — living and dead — from the 251 abducted in the attack two years ago, which led to the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians.
The remains of one more hostage, held in Gaza since 2014, are also expected to be returned.
In exchange, Israel will release 250 prisoners, including some serving life sentences for deadly anti-Israeli attacks, and 1,700 Gazans detained by the military since the war broke out.
The Israeli prison service said Saturday it had moved the 250 national security detainees to two prisons ahead of the handover.

‘Stood and cried’ 

More than 500,000 Palestinians had returned to Gaza City by Saturday evening, according to Gaza’s civil defense agency, a rescue service operating under Hamas authority.
“We walked for hours, and every step was filled with fear and anxiety for my home,” Raja Salmi, 52, told AFP.
When she reached the Al-Rimal neighborhood, she found her house utterly destroyed.
“I stood before it and cried. All those memories are now just dust,” she said.
Drone footage shot by AFP showed whole city blocks reduced to a twisted mess of concrete and steel reinforcing wire.
The walls and windows of five-story apartment blocks had been torn off and now lay choking the roadsides as disconsolate residents poked through the rubble.
The UN’s humanitarian office says Israel has allowed agencies to start transporting 170,000 tons of aid into Gaza if the ceasefire holds.

‘Ghost town’ 

Men, women and children navigated streets filled with rubble, searching for homes amid collapsed concrete slabs, destroyed vehicles and debris.
Sami Musa, 28, returned alone to check on his family’s house.
“Thank God... I found that our home is still standing,” Musa told AFP.
“It felt like a ghost town, not Gaza,” Musa said. “The smell of death still lingers in the air.”
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.
The data does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but indicates that more than half of the dead are women and children.
 

TEL AVIV: Tens of thousands of Israelis gathered beneath a screen in Tel Aviv marking 735 days since Hamas took hostages to Gaza, finally daring to hope a ceasefire will herald an end to their ordeal.
“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.
“We finally feel hope, but we cannot and will not stop now,” added Zairo Shachar Mohr Munder.
The body of his uncle, Abraham Munder — abducted on October 7, 2023, during Hamas’s unprecedented assault on Israel by air, sea, and land — was recovered by the Israeli army in Gaza in August.
“All hostages must come home — the living and the dead,” he said during the rally, organized by families of the captives.
At Tel Aviv’s central “Hostage Square,” many in the crowd wore T-shirts bearing the faces of those still held in Gaza and who could be released Monday.
Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire agreement on Friday, brokered by US President Donald Trump, marking a major step toward ending two years of devastating war in the Palestinian territory.
Under the deal, Hamas has until noon on Monday to hand over 47 remaining Israeli hostages — living and dead — from the 251 abducted two years ago.
The remains of one more hostage, held in Gaza since 2014, are also expected to be returned.
In exchange for their release, Israel is to free hundreds of prisoners.

- ‘Thank you, Trump’ -

“Donald Trump! You have made history,” declared Efrat Machikawa, niece of Gadi Moses, who was freed after 482 days in captivity, drawing applause from the crowd.
“You stood by our side, by our families’ sides, when we needed it most. You showed our nation and the entire world what true commitment looks like. Now it’s time to finish what we started!” she said.
A few American flags waved among Israeli ones in the square.
Suddenly, a cheer went through the crowd. “Witkoff! It’s Witkoff!” some shouted, as the US President’s peace envoy took to the stage.
“To the hostages themselves: you are coming home,” Witkoff said, prompting applause and cheers from the crowd.
Addressing the families of the hostages, he added: “Your courage has moved the world.”
Earlier on Saturday he also visited the Gaza Strip along with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Both Kushner and his wife, the president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump also addressed the cheering crowd, which chanted: “Thank You, Trump! Thank You, Trump!“
The crowd cheered Trump’s name enthusiastically, but there was anger when Witkoff tried to praise Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom many of the families feel has placed the hostages at unnecessary risk.
Maia Kampeas, holding a large American flag, said she felt a sense of deep emotion and gratitude toward the US leader.
“We are very thankful to Donald Trump for his support and strength,” she told AFP.
Another member of the crowd, Benjy Maor said he had attended the Saturday night rallies every week for two years “to show solidarity with the hostage families and to make my voice heard calling for an end to the war.”
“Finally, we feel a little optimism,” he said.
“But despite the joy surrounding the hostages’ release, this is a deeply complex moment. Some families may be preparing funerals for relatives killed two years ago by Hamas, while others celebrate the return of loved ones still alive.”
Two earlier truces in November 2023 and early 2025 also led to the release of hostages and bodies of captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, before they collapsed in more fighting.
Further rounds of negotiations are expected to follow to implement the Trump peace plan, aimed at achieving lasting stability.
“In the short term, we’ll see the hostages coming home,” said Maor. “But I remain deeply concerned about the situation in this region.”