Hamas will begin releasing Israeli hostages held in Gaza on Monday morning, a top official from the Palestinian militant group, ahead of a peace summit in Egypt chaired by US President Donald Trump.
As part of the first phase of the agreement, Hamas, which carried out deadly attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, 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 in an interview on Saturday.
Trump and Egyptian President 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, the Egyptian presidency announced.
The meeting 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,” the statement said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is expected to attend, along with Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, Spain’s Pedro Sánchez, and French President Emmanuel Macron.
There was no immediate confirmation on whether Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will attend. Hamas stated it would not participate, as it had “acted principally through… Qatari and Egyptian mediators” during negotiations, according to Hamas political bureau member Hossam Badran.
Despite this apparent breakthrough, mediators face the complex task of securing a longer-term political solution that would require Hamas to hand in weapons and step aside from governing Gaza.
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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.”
Under the Trump plan, as Israel carries out a phased withdrawal from Gaza’s cities, a multinational force from Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates will be deployed, coordinated by a US-led command centre 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 returning to devastated homes.
Witkoff, Kushner, and Trump’s daughter Ivanka then travelled to Tel Aviv to meet families of the remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza, with crowds shouting “Thank you Trump.”
Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is among the 20 hostages believed to be alive, said, “We will continue to shout and fight until everyone is home.”
Zairo Shachar Mohr Munder, whose uncle Abraham was abducted during the Hamas attack and whose body was recovered in August, added, “We finally feel hope, but we cannot and will not stop now.”
Hamas has until noon on Monday to hand over 47 remaining hostages living and deceased from the 251 abducted in the attack two years ago, which led to 1,219 deaths, most of them civilians. The remains of one more hostage, held in Gaza since 2014, are also expected to be returned.
In return, 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 began. The Israeli Prison Service said on Saturday that the 250 national security detainees had been moved to two prisons ahead of the handover.
More than 500,000 Palestinians had returned to Gaza City by Saturday evening, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency, a rescue service operating under Hamas authority.
Raja Salmi, 52, told, “We walked for hours, and every step was filled with fear and anxiety for my home. I stood before it and cried. All those memories are now just dust.”
Drone footage showed entire city blocks reduced to twisted concrete and steel, with walls and windows of five-storey apartment blocks torn off and littering the streets.
Sami Musa, 28, returned alone to check on his family home. “Thank God... I found that our home is still standing,” he said. “It felt like a ghost town, not Gaza. The smell of death still lingers in the air.”
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 67,682 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The United Nations considers these figures credible.
They do not distinguish between civilians and combatants but indicate that more than half of the dead are women and children.
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