Countdown to hostage release as Trump to host Gaza peace summit

GAZA: Hamas will release its remaining hostages on Monday (Oct 13) and will play no role in Gaza's future government, the group told AFP, as US President Donald Trump and other world leaders prepared to convene in Egypt for a major peace summit.

Trump will first pass through Israel, addressing parliament and meeting with hostage families on Monday before heading to Egypt's Sharm El-Sheikh for the summit, where a "document ending the war in the Gaza Strip" is expected to be signed, according to Cairo's foreign ministry.

As anxious but relieved Israeli families counted down the hours until their loved ones' return, desperate Palestinians picked through the ruins of their homes in Gaza City and aid trucks queued to deliver badly needed supplies.

The third day of the ceasefire saw some aid trucks cross into Gaza, but residents in Khan Yunis, 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 told AFP. "We stockpile food out of fear and worry that the war will come back."

"NOTHING LOOKED THE SAME"

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 told AFP. "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."

Israelis were looking forward keenly to Monday, when Hamas is expected to release its remaining 48 hostages, living and dead.

Late Saturday, massive crowds gathered in Tel Aviv to support hostage families and cheer Trump's peace envoy, Steve Witkoff.

Thousands packed "Hostage Square" – the scene of many protests and vigils during the two years since Hamas' unprecedented Oct 7, 2023 attacks triggered the latest war – chanting "Thank you Trump".

"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.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel was "prepared and ready for the immediate reception of all our hostages".

Militants seized 251 hostages during the Oct 7 attack on Israel, which led to the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians.

HOSTAGE AND PRISONER DEAL

A spokeswoman for the Israeli prime minister's office said it expects all hostages to be freed early Monday.

"We are expecting all 20 of our living hostages to be released together at one time to the Red Cross and transported in ... six to eight vehicles," Shosh Bedrosian told journalists on Sunday.

"The hostages will then be driven to forces inside of Israeli-controlled parts of Gaza and then transferred to the Reim base in southern Israel, where they will then reunite with their families."

They will then be taken to "one of three main hospitals".

Israel will begin releasing Palestinian prisoners once it has confirmation that all hostages have arrived in the country, she said.

"According to the signed agreement, the prisoner exchange is set to begin on Monday morning," Hamas official Osama Hamdan told AFP in an interview.

After Trump's visit to Israel on Monday, he and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will chair a summit of leaders from more than 20 countries in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, 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", 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 Meloni and Pedro Sanchez, and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Hamas and Israel are not expected to take part.

Despite the apparent breakthrough, mediators still have the tricky task of securing a longer-term political solution that will see Hamas hand over its weapons and step aside from running Gaza.

A Hamas source close to the group's negotiating committee told AFP on Sunday that it would not participate in post-war Gaza governance.

"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 said, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

But the official pushed back on calls for Hamas to lay down its weapons.

"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 said.

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.

Speaking on a succession of Sunday morning talk shows, US Vice President JD Vance stressed that 200 American troops being deployed to Israel would be responsible for monitoring the ceasefire in Gaza and were never intended for any sort of combat role.

He added that US troops will not be deployed on the ground in Palestinian territory.

"That's everything from ensuring that the Israeli troops are at the agreed-upon line, ensuring that Hamas is not attacking innocent Israelis, doing everything that they can to ensure the peace that we've created, actually sustains and endures," Vance said on ABC.

"But the idea that we're going to have troops on the ground in Gaza, in Israel, that that is not our intention, that is not our plan."

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.