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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 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 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, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, 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 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 defence 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 neighbourhood, 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-storey 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 tonnes 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.burs/dc/phz/dhw

A new restaurant opened its doors in Paris on Saturday, founded by a Palestinian from Gaza and a Franco-Israeli, aiming to promote reconciliation through food.The Palestinian, French and Israeli flags fly from the ceiling of “Sababa, the Taste of Peace”, where the first customers packed in to eat hummus, falafel or Gazan salad.Radjaa Aboudagga and his team have been toiling since 6:00 am to create the Middle Eastern dishes for families and friends of all ages seated on mats or at tables.”Everything is handmade,” said Aboudagga, a Franco-Palestinian originally from the Gaza Strip, in the restaurant’s crowded kitchen, as he prepares “manakish”, a flatbread topped with cheese, ground beef and herbs.The restaurant, which will be open four nights a week until June next year, was conceived with Franco-Israeli Edgar Laloum, in partnership with the “Nous reconcilier” (We Reconcile) group.”I’m happy about this day because it comes at a time when there is finally hope there too,” said Laloum as Aboudagga looked on, referring to the expected return of Israeli hostages and the release of Palestinian prisoners.Laloum, who lived for 30 years in Jerusalem, said the restaurant’s menu is made of “dishes that Israelis and Palestinians eat in the same way”.”The two peoples, Palestinian and Israeli, have the same customs, the same dreams, the same tears and the same sadness,” added Aboudagga.”We share the same land, we all have to live together on it,” he added, welcoming the decision of the French government and others to recognise a state of Palestine.- Joie de vivre -The restaurant is housed at the Consulat Voltaire, an old electricity sub-station turned cultural centre, in the 11th district of Paris near the place de la Bastille.One customer, Raphael, who did not want to give his last name, told AFP that the three flags were “symbolic”.”It’s very beautiful and I was explaining to my son that, in the end, we can all live together.”Another diner, Henri Poulain, 57, said he saw it as a sign of “reconciliation” and “a link between the French Republic on the one hand” and “these two states, one of which has yet to be born”.Even if the war were to resume in the Gaza Strip, he said he was convinced “it wouldn’t weaken a place like this”.Psychosociologist Joelle Bordet, 72, said she thought the word “reconciliation” was “too strong”.”Just being together in the same space, when you’re effectively enemies, is extraordinary,” she said. “I can’t do it today in my network with Russians and Ukrainians.”Next to Bordet was Nour-Eddine Skiker, head of the “Jalons pour la paix” association, some of whose volunteers came with a local youth council group to lend a hand.”In this very small space, there is room for everyone,” he said.One of the young volunteers, Mboreha Ahamed, 23, added: “Being here under these three flags is super symbolic… over a meal where we think of other things.”At about 2:00 pm, the queue to order mezze was long.Readings of poems in Hebrew, Arabic and French, discussion groups and concerts were all planned, all, in the words of the restaurant’s founders, in the spirit of “joie de vivre” — the meaning of “Sababa” in both Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians returned to a devastated Gaza City on Saturday, as Hamas prepared to release Israeli hostages and US President Donald Trump readied to chair an international summit on  his peace plan for the region.Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will chair the summit of more than 20 countries in the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday afternoon, the Egyptian presidency said.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.A day after the guns fell silent, Trump’s Middle East envoy promised Israeli hostage families their loved ones would return, and the region’s top US general visited Gaza.”Your courage has moved the world,” Steve Witkoff told the families and huge crowd in Tel Aviv. “To the hostages themselves: you are coming home,” he declared, as Israelis chanted “Thank you Trump”.Shortly afterwards, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan said “the prisoner exchange is set to begin on Monday morning as agreed”.Israel and Hamas are to release hostages and prisoners, two years after the Palestinian militant group’s October 7, 2023 attack triggered a counter-offensive that killed more than 67,000 Palestinians.But mediators still have to secure a longer-term political solution that will see Hamas hand in its weapons and step aside from governing Gaza.In an interview with AFP in Qatar, Hossam Badran, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, warned that the second phase of Trump’s plan “contains many complexities and difficulties.”Hamas, he said, would not attend the formal signing of the Gaza peace deal in Egypt.Hamas is resisting calls to disarm. An official from the group, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that it 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, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, coordinated by a US-led command centre in Israel.On Saturday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Admiral Brad Cooper, Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner visited Gaza.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.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 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, 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’ -According to Gaza’s civil defence agency, a rescue service operating under Hamas authority, more than 500,000 Palestinians had returned to Gaza City by Saturday evening.”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 neighbourhood, 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-storey apartment blocks had been torn off and now lay choking the roadsides as disconsolate residents poked through the rubble.The United Nations humanitarian office says Israel has allowed agencies to start transporting 170,000 tonnes 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.The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.str-burs-rs/dc/yad/phz

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians returned to a devastated Gaza City on Saturday, as Hamas warned the next stage in US President Donald Trump’s peace plan would be more difficult than the first.Trump’s Middle East envoy promised Israeli hostage families their loved ones would be returned to them by Monday, and the region’s top US general visited Gaza one day after the guns fell silent.”Your courage has moved the world,” US peace envoy Witkoff told the families and huge crowd in Tel Aviv. “To the hostages themselves: you are coming home,” he declared, as Israelis chanted “Thank you Trump”.Israel and Hamas are now expected to release hostages and prisoners, two years after the Palestinian militant group’s October 7, 2023 attack triggered a counteroffensive that killed more than 67,000 Palestinians.But mediators still have to secure a longer-term political solution that will see Hamas hand in its weapons and step aside from governing Gaza.In an interview with AFP in Qatar, Hossam Badran, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, warned: “The second phase of the Trump plan, as it is clear from the points themselves, contains many complexities and difficulties.”Hamas, he said, would not attend the formal signing of the Gaza peace deal in Egypt, where international leaders are due to gather Monday to discuss implementing the first phase of the ceasefire.Hamas is resisting calls to disarm. An official from the group, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that it was “out of the question”.Hamas ally Iran also warned it did not trust Israel to respect the ceasefire.”There is absolutely no trust in the Zionist regime,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, said, accusing Israel of violating previous ceasefires, such as in Lebanon.- Multinational force -Under the Trump plan, as Israel conducts a phased withdrawal from Gaza’a cities, it will be replaced by a multinational force from Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, coordinated by a US-led command centre in Israel.On Saturday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Admiral Brad Cooper, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-on-law Jared Kushner visited Gaza.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.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 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, Israel will release 250 prisoners, including some of those 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’ -According to Gaza’s civil defence agency, a rescue service operating under Hamas authority, more than 500,000 Palestinians had returned to Gaza City by Saturday evening.”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 neighbourhood, 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-storey apartment blocks had been torn off and now lay choking the roadsides as disconsolate residents poked through the rubble.The United Nations humanitarian office says Israel has allowed agencies to start transporting 170,000 tonnes 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.While some returned in vehicles, most walked, carrying belongings in bags strapped to their shoulders.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.The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.str-burs-rs/dc/jsa

Pro-Palestinian protesters marched in several cities in Europe on Saturday, voicing cautious hope with a dose of scepticism as a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza entered its second day.In the latest weekend of such protests, demonstrators shouted “Free Palestine” and brandished Palestinian flags, with tens of thousands marching in London, some 5,500 turning out in Berlin and 500 gathering in Vienna.Clashes erupted in Switzerland’s Bern between police and protesters after some 2,000 held an unauthorised protest in the centre, with some black mask-clad demonstrators throwing fireworks and police responding with tear gas and water cannon.  In London, Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which has organised monthly pro-Palestinian rallies in London since the start of the war two years ago, said “We’re… sharing the relief of the Palestinian people.””But we also come here sharing their trepidation that this ceasefire will not hold,” Jamal told AFP.Despite concerns about President Donald Trump’s proposed peace plan for Gaza — calling for a transitional authority headed by the US leader — Jamal said there was an “immense sense of relief”.A sea of red and green, the colours of the Palestinian flag, formed along the embankment of the River Thames in central London, where the largely peaceful march began.Protesters donned black-and-white keffiyeh scarves, carrying signs of “Stop Starving Gaza” and “Stop the genocide”, and chanting “Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.A group of counter-protesters waving Israeli flags blared loud music as the main demonstration marched towards Whitehall. London police said a “small number of arrests” were made during scuffles between the two groups.In Berlin, where some 60,000 people marched two weeks ago, the much smaller largely peaceful protest saw some accuse the German government — a staunch Israel ally — of “being on the wrong side of history”.- ‘Eyes on Gaza’ -The war in Gaza was sparked by Palestinian militant group Hamas’s deadly October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israel figures.Israel’s military response has killed at least 67,682 people, most of them civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the UN considers reliable.The conflict has sparked a humanitarian crisis and the UN has declared famine conditions in parts of Gaza.”I’m here with my friends to help show that there is, continuously, eyes on Gaza, even considering the current ceasefire,” said Katrina Scales, a 23-year-old sociology and psychology student.She added a ceasefire was “not enough”, and that she planned to keep attending marches.Trade unionist Steve Headley, in his fifties, was also unconvinced. “Hopefully now we’ve got the first steps towards peace, but we’ve been here before,” Headley told AFP. He questioned Trump’s “plans for a ‘riviera’ in Gaza” that the US president had touted earlier this year.For 74-year-old Miranda Finch, part of a group marching under the banner of “descendants of Holocaust survivors against Gaza genocide”, the ceasefire was “very little”.”The Palestinians are not going back to nothing. They’re going back to less than nothing. Rubble on top of bodies, on top of sewage.”Fabio Capogreco, 42, who was attending his fifth demonstration with his two children and wife, said the ceasefire was “too little, too late”, adding that those complicit in the war needed to be held accountable.”Hopefully it’s one of the last times we need to come here to manifest,” said the bar manager. “But I think it’s too early to say everything is ok.”

Several hundred people demonstrated and expressed support for the Palestinian cause in Oslo on Saturday as Israel faced Norway in a football World Cup qualifier, AFP journalists reported.Activists briefly unfurled a giant Palestinian flag and a large banner reading “Let Children Live” inside the Ullevaal Stadium, where only several dozen Israeli fans could be seen waving their country’s flag and a banner reading “Let the Ball Talk!”.A pro-Palestinian activist was forcibly removed from the stands.Whistling could be heard during the Israeli national anthem and the Israeli players were booed before the game.Several hours before the match, hundreds of people attended a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Oslo, chanting “Free Palestine” to protest against Israel’s “genocide”.Many demonstrators wore Palestinian keffiyeh shawls draped over their shoulders and waved Palestinian flags as they gathered in the city centre before marching to the stadium.Smoke flares were lit but the atmosphere remained calm.”The message today is to say we give the red card to Israel, to apartheid, and to genocide,” said Line Khateeb, the head of the Norwegian Committee for Palestine, one of the organisers of the protest.”We do not accept football being used to whitewash war crimes, as we see today when Israel participates in the World Cup qualification games,” she told AFP.Demonstrators carried banners reading “Exclude Israel from International Football”, “From the River to the Sea”, “Red Card to Israel” and “It’s a Genocide, Not a War”.”Israel has been committing genocide for the last two years and killing indiscriminately, doing the most horrible thing that could be imaginable,” one of the demonstrators, Munib Sarwar, a 40-year-old engineer, told AFP.”We need to show solidarity with the children and the people of Gaza who have been terrorised for the last two years,” he added. Organisers decided to go ahead with the demonstration despite the Gaza ceasefire deal reached Thursday between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.”It’s not the end of the occupation. It doesn’t mean the West Bank is free. It doesn’t mean Palestine is free. We need to keep pushing and putting sanctions on Israel to hold them accountable in order to have a proper free Palestine,” Khateeb said.Heavy security was in place for the match. Dozens of police officers on horseback and others in riot gear were posted near the stadium, an AFP journalist saw.The head of the Norwegian football association, Lise Klaveness, recently said she was pushing “for Israel to be sanctioned”.”Personally, I think that if Russia is excluded, Israel should be as well,” she said in a Norwegian podcast.  Several days after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, UEFA and FIFA agreed to exclude Russian teams and clubs from all international competitions, a sanction that remains in place.The Norwegian Football Association has previously said it would donate the proceeds from the ticket sales for Saturday’s match to Doctors Without Borders.With five victories in five matches, Norway top Group I of European qualifying with 15 points ahead of Italy and Israel, who both have nine points.

Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters marched in London on Saturday, expressing scepticism and cautious hope as a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza entered its second day.Elsewhere, about 5,500 people marched in Berlin, according to police, while some 500 turned out in Vienna, shouting “Free Palestine” and brandishing Palestinian flags, in another weekend of protests across Europe.  “We’re… sharing the relief of the Palestinian people,” said Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which has organised massive monthly pro-Palestinian rallies in London since the start of the war two years ago.”But we also come here sharing their trepidation that this ceasefire will not hold, rooted in the knowledge that Israel has violated every ceasefire agreement it’s ever signed,” Jamal told AFP.Despite concerns about President Donald Trump’s proposed peace plan for Gaza — calling for a transitional authority headed by the US leader — Jamal said there was an “immense sense of relief”.A sea of red and green, the colours of the Palestinian flag, formed along the embankment of the River Thames in central London, where the largely peaceful march began.Protesters donned black-and-white keffiyeh scarves, carrying signs of “Stop Starving Gaza” and “Stop the genocide”, and chanting “Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.A group of counter-protesters waving Israeli flags blared loud music as the main demonstration marched towards Whitehall. London police said a “small number of arrests” were made during scuffles between the two groups.In Berlin, where some 60,000 people marched two weeks ago, the largely peaceful protest saw some accuse the German government — a staunch Israel ally — of “being on the wrong side of history”.- ‘Eyes on Gaza’ -The war in Gaza was sparked by Palestinian militant group Hamas’s deadly October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israel figures.Israel’s military response has killed at least 67,682 people, most of them civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the UN considers reliable.The conflict has sparked a humanitarian crisis and the UN has declared famine conditions in parts of Gaza.”I’m here with my friends to help show that there is, continuously, eyes on Gaza, even considering the current ceasefire,” said Katrina Scales, a 23-year-old sociology and psychology student.She added a ceasefire was “not enough”, and that she planned to keep attending marches.Trade unionist Steve Headley, in his fifties, was also unconvinced. “Hopefully now we’ve got the first steps towards peace, but we’ve been here before,” Headley told AFP. He questioned Trump’s “plans for a ‘riviera’ in Gaza” that the US president had touted earlier this year.For 74-year-old Miranda Finch, part of a group marching under the banner of “descendants of Holocaust survivors against Gaza genocide”, the ceasefire was “very little”.”The Palestinians are not going back to nothing. They’re going back to less than nothing. Rubble on top of bodies, on top of sewage.”Fabio Capogreco, 42, who was attending his fifth demonstration with his two children and wife, said the ceasefire was “too little, too late”, adding that those complicit in the war needed to be held accountable.”Hopefully it’s one of the last times we need to come here to manifest,” said the bar manager. “But I think it’s too early to say everything is ok.”

Hundreds of thousands of war-weary Palestinians returned to a devastated Gaza City on Saturday, with families picking their way through rubble-strewn streets only to find many of their homes in ruins.On the second day of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the scale of the recovery operation was daunting, even as negotiations and preparations for a prisoner swap continued.US President Donald Trump is due in the Middle East in the next two days to celebrate the promised release of Israeli hostages — still held in Gaza two years after Hamas’s October 7 attack — and to promote the next phase of his plan.But in an early sign that much political wrangling remains, a senior Hamas official told AFP that it was “out of the question” that the Palestinian Islamist movement would disarm, as required by the plan, even if it steps aside from Gaza’s government.- ‘Stood and cried’ -A part of Trump’s deal was completed on Friday when Israel agreed a ceasefire and withdrew its forces from parts of Gaza, allowing displaced families to begin trekking back to their homes, many of them wrecked by Israeli bombardments. According to Gaza’s civil defence agency, a rescue service operating under Hamas authority, more than 500,000 people had returned to Gaza City by Saturday evening.”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 neighbourhood, she found her house utterly destroyed.”I stood before it and cried. All those memories are now just dust,” she said.Aerial footage of the city filmed by AFP showed whole city blocks reduced to a twisted mess of concrete and steel reinforcing wire, the walls and windows of five-storey apartment blocks ripped off and left choking the roadsides as disconsolate residents returned.The United Nations humanitarian office says Israel has allowed agencies to start transporting 170,000 tonnes of aid into Gaza if the ceasefire holds.The top US officer in the Middle East, CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper, visited Gaza on Saturday to discuss setting up what he described on social media as a “civil-military coordination center” which will “support conflict stabilisation.”The US military will coordinate a multinational taskforce which will deploy in Gaza and is likely to include troops from Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates — but no American boots on the ground inside the territory itself.Under the ceasefire deal pushed by Trump, Hamas has until noon on Monday to hand over 47 remaining Israeli hostages — living and dead — from the 251 abducted during its October 7 attack on Israel two years ago. 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 of those 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 the prisons of Ofer, in the occupied West Bank, and Ketziot in southern Israel’s Negev desert, ahead of the handover.  – ‘Ghost town’ -Many parts of the Trump proposal still have not been agreed, including its plans for post-war governance, and its insistence that Hamas disarm.At Al-Rantisi hospital in Gaza City, a facility for children and cancer patients, AFP footage showed wards reduced to heaps of overturned metal beds, gaping ceilings and scattered medical equipment.”I don’t know what to say. The images speak louder than any words: destruction, destruction, and more destruction,” said Saher Abu Al-Atta, a resident who had returned to the city.Men, women and children navigated streets filled with rubble, searching for homes amid collapsed concrete slabs, destroyed vehicles and debris.While some returned in vehicles, most walked, carrying belongings in bags strapped to their shoulders.Sami Musa, 28, returned alone to check on his family’s house.”Thank God… I found that our home is still standing, though it has suffered some damage that we can repair,” Musa told AFP.Nonetheless, the destruction in Gaza City left him shocked but determined to rebuild.”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.The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.str-vid-al-jd/dc/jsa