Hamas to free Israeli hostages ahead of Trump-led peace Summit in Egypt
Gaza City: Hamas will begin releasing Israeli hostages held in Gaza on Monday morning, a senior official from the Palestinian militant group told AFP, ahead of a major international peace summit chaired by US President Donald Trump in Egypt.
Under the first phase of the deal, Hamas will release 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 on Saturday.
Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi are set to co-chair the peace summit at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday afternoon, according to the Egyptian presidency. The meeting, which will include more than 20 countries, aims “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.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, and French President Emmanuel Macron are among those expected to attend.
There was no immediate confirmation on whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would participate. Hamas said it would not attend, noting that it had “acted principally through... Qatari and Egyptian mediators” during the talks, according to Hamas political bureau member Hossam Badran.
Despite the breakthrough, mediators still face the complex task of negotiating a long-term political settlement that includes Hamas relinquishing its weapons and control of Gaza. Badran acknowledged that the second phase of Trump’s peace plan “contains many complexities and difficulties,” while another Hamas official, speaking anonymously, said that disarmament was “out of the question.”
Multinational force
Under Trump’s proposal, Israel will gradually withdraw its forces from Gaza’s cities, to be replaced by a multinational security force from Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates, coordinated by a US-led command centre in Israel.
On Saturday, US CENTCOM chief Admiral Brad Cooper, Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner visited Gaza, where thousands of displaced Palestinians were returning to their destroyed homes. Witkoff, Kushner, and Ivanka Trump later met in Tel Aviv with the families of remaining hostages, where crowds chanted, “Thank you Trump.
Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is among about 20 hostages believed to 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 whose body was recovered in August.
Hamas has until noon Monday to hand over the 47 remaining hostages, both living and dead, from the 251 abducted two years ago, an assault that killed 1,219 people, most of them civilians. The remains of one hostage held since 2014 are also expected to be returned.
In exchange, Israel will free 250 prisoners, including those serving life sentences for deadly attacks, and 1,700 Gazans detained since the start of the war. The Israeli prison service said Saturday it had already transferred the 250 national security detainees to two prisons in preparation for the exchange.
Return to Ruins
By Saturday evening, Gaza’s civil defence agency said more than 500,000 Palestinians had returned to Gaza City.
“We walked for hours, and every step was filled with fear and anxiety for my home,” said Raja Salmi, 52. “I stood before it and cried. All those memories are now just dust.”
Drone footage showed vast swathes of the city reduced to rubble — entire blocks flattened, concrete slabs and steel wires choking the streets as residents searched through debris.
The UN humanitarian office said Israel has permitted aid agencies to deliver 170,000 tonnes of humanitarian supplies into Gaza, provided the ceasefire holds.
For many, the return was bittersweet. Sami Musa, 28, who came back to inspect his family’s home, said, “Thank God... I found that our home is still standing.”
“It felt like a ghost town, not Gaza. The smell of death still lingers in the air.”
According to Gaza’s health ministry, 67,682 people have been killed in Israel’s campaign, a toll the UN deems credible. The figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but more than half of the dead are women and children.