Israel

Norwegian riot police used pepper spray to disperse a pro-Palestinian protest outside a World Cup qualifier match between Norway and Israel, which the hosts won 5-0. Several activists were arrested.

Erling Haaland’s Norway close in on World Cup qualification in a match where a pro-Palestine demonstration was held.

Erling Haaland scored a hat-trick to pass 50 international goals in record time as Norway cruised to a 5-0 thrashing of Israel, edging closer to qualifying for a first FIFA World Cup finals since 1998.

Before the Saturday night match in Oslo, hundreds of people attended a pro-Palestinian demonstration, chanting “Free Palestine” to protest against Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza, AFP journalists reported.

Norwegian police dispersed a gathering of pro-Palestinian activists with tear gas and made several arrests.

Inside the Ullevaal Stadium, several dozen Israeli fans waved their country’s flag and a banner reading “Let the Ball Talk!”.

Norway now lead Group I with 18 points, six more than second-placed Italy, who beat Estonia 3-1 in Tallinn to stay on track for qualification.

The comfortable win in Oslo leaves Norway firmly in control of the group as they seek a place at next year’s finals in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

After a meek performance, Israel take on Italy in Udine on Tuesday, knowing they must win to keep alive their fading hopes of qualifying.

Haaland’s hat-trick sets the tone

Haaland became the fastest player in men’s international football to reach 50 goals for his country and now boasts 51 goals for Norway in just 46 games.

His early penalty was saved by Israel goalkeeper Daniel Peretz, but the referee ordered the spot-kick to be retaken for encroachment inside the area, only for Peretz to parry away Haaland’s second effort.

But Norway forged ahead in the 18th minute through an Anan Khalaili own goal, before Haaland raced clear to score. Norway got their third from an Idan Nachmias own goal.

Manchester City forward Haaland added his second with a powerful header before nodding in to complete his sixth hat-trick for his country with 18 minutes left.

Norway has not played at a major tournament since Euro 2000.

Italy, attempting to reach their first World Cup finals since 2014, moved a step closer thanks to goals from Moise Kean, Mateo Retegui and Pio Esposito in Tallinn.

The Italians move three points ahead of Israel in second place in Group I, which offers a playoff spot.

Italy’s meeting with Israel is expected to be a tense affair, surrounded by pro-Palestinian protests, and only 5,000 tickets have been sold.

Preparations are also under way for a Gaza summit in Egypt, with US President Donald Trump expected to attend.

Oct. 11 (UPI) — A cease-fire remains in effect in Gaza, where aid is flowing while Israel prepares to receive 48 released hostages, only 20 of whom are thought to be alive.

U.N. officials said medical supplies, fuel and other needed materials are flowing into Gaza once again as the fighting has stopped ahead of a proposed permanent peace, NBC News reported.

The Israeli military also has withdrawn to a predetermined line, which has started the 72-hour countdown for Hamas to release the remaining 48 hostages, including the remains of an estimated 28 hostages who are believed to be dead, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff announced.

No hostilities are underway in Gaza, which has enabled its remaining residents to begin returning to their former homes, many of which have been decimated during two years of war that started when Hamas launched an unprovoked attack on Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023.

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants killed some 1,200 Israeli civilians and others and kidnapped another 250, but released more than 100 during a prior cease-fire.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians are returning to cities and villages that largely have been destroyed, according to Al Jazeera.

Israel has agreed to release nearly 250 Palestinian prisoners and has begun notifying the families of those who were killed by the prisoners that Israel will release.

Israel’s partial withdrawal from Gaza and the exchange of remaining hostages held in Gaza and prisoners held in Israel are part of the first phase of the peace agreement between Israel and Hamas.

Israeli officials expect to begin receiving the living hostages and the remains of those who are deceased on Monday.

While the first phase of the peace agreement is underway, leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine have rejected any potential foreign nations acting as peacekeepers in Gaza, though.

The United States is among the nations that are tasked with helping to maintain the peace in Gaza.

Gazan officials also are demanding an independent investigation of alleged Israeli war crimes and genocide against Gazans.

The demand comes after the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry reported about 67,000 Gazans died and 170,000 were injured during the two-year conflict.

The Health Ministry’s numbers do not differentiate between Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters and civilians, and the number of reported casualties has been disputed.

Donald Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi will chair an international summit to discuss the US president’s proposal to end Israel’s war on Gaza in Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday.

The meeting will involve leaders from more than 20 countries, the Egyptian presidency said in a statement on Saturday.

It 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”, the statement said.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer said they would attend, along with Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Pedro Sanchez of Spain. French President Emmanuel Macron has also confirmed his attendance.

It was not immediately clear whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or any representatives of the Hamas Palestinian group, would attend.

The announcement comes as tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed north along the coast of Gaza, by foot, car and cart back, to their abandoned and mostly destroyed homes in the Strip, as a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas appeared to be holding.

Israeli troops partially pulled back under the first phase of a US-brokered agreement reached this week to end Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 67,000 people and left much of the famine-struck enclave in ruins.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said that the ceasefire “ended one form of violence, but the struggle continues”.

“People walk this exhausting, tiring journey back here [in the north] because they belong here. They keep telling us that they belong to this part of the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip, and they will never be uprooted from here,” Mahmoud said.

“But spending a night here is going to be very difficult,” he said. “The struggle to survive continues to present itself in the most aggressive way, not each day but each hour.”

Gaza’s Government Media Office has said that 5,000 public operations have been carried out after the ceasefire came into force to improve the lives of Palestinians in the enclave.

Among them are more than 850 rescue and relief missions carried out by the Gaza Civil Defence, police and municipal teams to recover bodies, remove rubble and secure destroyed areas.

About 150 bodies have been recovered from various areas across the enclave since Friday morning, the Civil Defence said. Separately, Nasser Hospital reported that 28 bodies were recovered from southern Gaza’s Khan Younis alone.

More than 900 service missions to restore water and sewage lines have also been carried out, the agency added.

These missions are being carried out with the bare minimum of resources as Israel’s blockade on Gaza remains in place, restricting the entry of fuel and equipment. During the genocide, Israeli attacks destroyed ambulances, fire trucks and civil defence centres, further crippling emergency and recovery efforts across the enclave.

The mayor of Khan Younis said that 85 percent of the southern Gaza governorate has been destroyed by Israeli attacks, adding that about 400,000 tonnes of rubble must be removed from the city’s streets.

Calls for crossings to open

Aid groups have also urged Israel to reopen more crossings to allow aid into Gaza.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said it was ready to restore 145 food distribution points across the territory, once Israel allows for expanded deliveries. Before Israel completely sealed off Gaza in March, United Nations agencies provided food at 400 distribution points.

“What is most important now for us to reach the north is crossings to be opened,” Antoine Renard, a WFP representative and the country director for Palestine, told Al Jazeera from Deir el-Balah.

He explained that in a previous ceasefire in January, the WFP had enabled “practically a third of all the different goods that managed to enter into Gaza”.

“The conditions should be the same 1760225956. We expect that the good practices that we had in January 2025 will be again applied in this ceasefire,” Renard said.

Izzat al-Risheq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, said the group is working with “friendly countries” to ensure the entry of aid into Gaza, “despite the massive destruction caused by the war”.

UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram said on Saturday that the children’s agency expects to significantly scale up supplies of high-energy food for malnourished children, menstrual hygiene supplies and tents, starting on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Israeli captives held in Gaza by Hamas and other armed groups are expected to “come back” on Monday, US President Trump said, with 20 living captives and the bodies of 28 others due to be handed over as part of the ceasefire deal.

In exchange, Israel is due to release some 250 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, as well as about 1,700 people detained from Gaza over the past two years of war and held without charge. The Israel Prison Service said that detainees have been transferred to deportation facilities at Ofer and Ktzi’ot prisons, “awaiting instructions from the political echelon”.

In past exchanges, Israel has delayed the release of Palestinian prisoners and subjected them to harsh treatment, including physical abuse, humiliation and restrictions on family contact, before eventually releasing them. Rights groups have documented numerous cases of Palestinians arriving in dire health conditions after prolonged interrogation and detention without charge or trial.

In Tel Aviv, tens of thousands of people gathered in Hostages Square after two years of protests led by family members of captives calling for their return.

Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his daughter, Ivanka Trump, took the stage in the square with the US Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, who played a key role in the ceasefire negotiations.

“I dreamed of this night. It’s been a long journey,” Witkoff said. Some yelled, “Thank you, Trump, thank you Witkoff”, and booed when the envoy mentioned Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Turning to the captives, Witkoff said: “As you return to the embrace of your families and your nation, know that all of Israel and the entire world stands ready to welcome you home with open arms and endless love.”

Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said that Israeli captives’ families credit Trump for the deal, not Netanyahu.

“The family members of captives have no faith in their government, no faith in the Israeli prime minister, whom they accused of prolonging the war for his own personal and political gain,” Salhut said.

“The cheers for [Trump] and for Steve Witkoff come because the family members and those who are protesting say this happened because of the Americans.”

Activists campaign to suspend Israel from European football, calling for accountability for genocide.

Calls for Israel’s suspension from European football have been renewed a day after the ceasefire in Gaza came into effect and as the Israeli team has resumed its qualification campaign for the FIFA World Cup 2026.

The human rights campaign group Game Over Israel urged UEFA on Saturday to suspend Israel until it ends its abuses against Palestinians.

With the ceasefire in Gaza coming into effect on Friday, Ashish Prashar, a campaign director at Game Over Israel, stressed the need to hold Israel accountable for its conduct.

He said Israel has “no place in international football” after the horrors it unleashed on Gaza, which leading rights groups and United Nations investigators have described as a genocide.

“Even if bombs and bullets stop, genocide is a crime against humanity and perhaps the gravest crime a state or project can commit,” Prashar told Al Jazeera.

“Remember what Europe did after World War II. Nazi Germany was suspended from football, and the Nuremberg trials took place.”

Game Over Israel has been using billboards in major cities across the world to drive home that message. The latest billboard was revealed in Milan and addressed to UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin.

“Israel is committing genocide. Suspend Israel now. It’s your moral obligation,” it said.

The campaign also conveyed the same message in a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times on Saturday.

From Times Square to MILAN 🇮🇹, football fans have had ENOUGH! ‼️😡 Stop allowing football to sports-wash genocide. The world sees through it and we’re demanding a full Israeli boycott across football. The Federations can’t hide anymore. Suspend Israel.#GameOverIsrael @UEFA pic.twitter.com/pbQSmn1pia

— gameoverisrael (@gameover_israel) October 11, 2025

John Dugard, former UN special rapporteur on Palestine, said it remains legally necessary and urgent for UEFA to ban the Israel Football Association (IFA).

“By continuing to host Israeli teams, UEFA risks becoming complicit in the normalisation of war crimes,” Dugard said in a statement.

“We urge you to uphold the integrity of the sport and immediately suspend the IFA and all affiliated teams from UEFA competitions until Israel ends the genocide and its unlawful occupation, and fully complies with its obligations under international law.”

In addition to the atrocities in Gaza, Israel allows teams based in settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are illegal under international law, to compete in its professional leagues in violation of FIFA rules.

“Member associations and their clubs may not play on the territory of another member association without the latter’s approval,” FIFA statutes read.

There is international consensus, backed by UN resolutions and International Court of Justice opinions, that the West Bank is Palestinian territory illegally occupied by Israel.

Both FIFA and UEFA suspended Russia days after it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“Mass imprisonment is a red line. Systematic torture is a red line. Illegal occupation is a red line. Apartheid is a red line. And genocide is the reddest line of all,” former UN official Craig Mokhiber said in a statement.

“Israel has crossed too many of humanity’s red lines to be granted a pass. To normalise this now would mean complicity in shepherding in a new era of horror for our world.”

This month, more than 30 legal scholars penned a letter to Ceferin emphasising the need to ban Israel.

Hundreds of Norwegian fans protested against Israel before their national team’s game against Israel on Saturday, waving Palestinian flags and banners accusing Israel of apartheid and genocide.

The match ended in a thumping 5-0 win for Norway. Israel now sits in third spot in Group I of the UEFA qualifiers before its match against Italy on Tuesday and has a razor-thin chance of booking a playoff spot for the World Cup.

The United States, which will co-host next year’s tournament alongside Canada and Mexico, has said it will block any attempts to ban Israel from the World Cup should it qualify.

Israel has never qualified for the FIFA World Cup on a European quota. It did so in 1970 from Asia.

For the past couple of months, the billionaire father-son duo of Larry and David Ellison have been making deals involving major media brands. Having acquired Paramount, the parent company of CBS News, they appointed Bari Weiss – an outspoken supporter of Israel – as the network’s editor-in-chief. The moves by the Ellisons are not just about growing their media empire, but about shaping the narrative around Israel in the US, where public support continues to decline.

Contributors: 
David Klion – Columnist, The Nation
Danielle Moodie – Host, The Danielle Moodie Show
Ryan Grim – Reporter, Drop Site News

On our radar:

Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of a Gaza ceasefire, ending two years of genocide. It’s a moment that brought relief to Palestinians in Gaza. But for Donald Trump, it was an opportunity for self-congratulation – with both he and his allies emphasising how pivotal he was in making things happen. Tariq Nafi has been following the story.

In Portugal, the far-right party Chega, once on the fringes, is leading the polls, and its leader, Andre Ventura, has become one of the country’s most recognisable political figures. Ventura’s rise has been spurred by his television background and carefully crafted media persona. The onetime football pundit has become a political showman. And he’s been amplified by the country’s mainstream media, who have been chasing ratings over accountability.  Ryan Kohls reports.

Featuring:
Miguel Carvalho – Journalist
Ines Narciso – Disinformation researcher, Iscte-Iul
Anabela Neves – Journalist, CNN Portugal

Hamas is pressing Israel to include prominent Palestinians in a prisoner-release list – part of a ceasefire deal that will also see hostages returned from Gaza.

Hamas’s insistence comes after the Israeli justice ministry published the names of 250 prisoners to be freed, but excluded seven high-profile prisoners, including Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Saadat.

The men, who are serving sentences after being convicted of involvement in separate deadly attacks in Israel, have long been seen by Palestinians as symbols of resistance.

Twenty Israeli hostages are expected to be released before 12:00 (09:00 GMT) on Monday as part of the deal proposed by US President Donald Trump.

A senior Palestinian official familiar with the talks told the BBC that US envoy Steve Witkoff had promised to raise the exclusion of the Palestinian prisoners with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but Israel has firmly refused to include them.

It is not clear whether this could be a sticking point, or impact the timeline for the release of hostages from the Gaza Strip and Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

The releases are due to take place in the first phase of Trump’s ceasefire and hostage return deal, approved this week to end the two-year war in Gaza.

It is unclear how the hostages will be released this time – on previous occasions Hamas paraded them in public, infuriating Israel and many of its Western allies.

The bodies of deceased hostages will also be returned. It is thought that at least 26 hostages are deceased, with the fate of two others unknown.

Israel will also release about 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences in Israeli jails, and another 1,700 Palestinians from Gaza who have been detained.

Hamas had submitted a list of prisoners it wanted released that included Barghouti and Saadat.

Barghouti is serving five life sentences plus 40 years after being convicted in 2004 of planning attacks that led to five civilians being killed.

Opinion polls have consistently indicated that he remains the most popular Palestinian leader, and that Palestinians would vote for him in a presidential election ahead of the current Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas or Hamas leaders.

Barghouti remains a senior figure in the Fatah faction that dominates the PA, which governs parts of the occupied West Bank not under Israeli control.

Saadat, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was sentenced to 30 years after being convicted in 2008 of heading an “illegal terrorist organisation” and involvement in attacks, including the assassination of an Israeli minister in 2001.

Among the 250 prisoners set to be released is Iyad Abu al-Rub, an Islamic Jihad commander convicted of orchestrating suicide bombings in Israel that killed 13 people in the early 2000s.

According to the Israeli justice ministry, he will be released either to Gaza or deported abroad.

The BBC understands that Hamas is also pushing for some possible additional prisoner releases. These relate to Palestinian prisoners who were released years ago as part of an exchange for the hostage Gilad Shalit – and then were rearrested after 7 October.

Hamas argues that since they were part of a previous hostage exchange, they should not be included in the 250 figure.

In Israel, hospitals are preparing for the release of hostages as families await their return.

The first phase of the Israel-Hamas deal saw a ceasefire take effect on Friday and Israeli forces partially withdraw from parts of Gaza. Hundreds of aid trucks a day are now expected to enter. The next phases are still being negotiated.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have returned from southern Gaza to Gaza City, weeks after fleeing the Israeli offensive that destroyed much of the city.

Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defence agency has said it is conducting recovery operations and pulling bodies from the rubble, with Palestinians still missing across the territory.

Israel’s war on Gaza was triggered by the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

Since then, 67,682 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, the Hamas-run health ministry says.

Additional reporting by Mallory Moench

HAMAS does not believe in peace and still poses a chilling threat to the West, analysts have warned.

The terror group signed up to Trump’s peace plan which says it must disarm, but has not specifically pledged to do so – and experts have taken this as a bad omen.

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A ceasefire officially came into force on Friday – clearing the way for the first phase of Donald Trump’s sweeping peace plan to return the hostages and demilitarise Gaza.

The US announced it would deploy up to 200 troops to Israel to help support peacekeeping efforts in Gaza.

However, signs of trouble are already brewing after a Hamas official rejected the idea of Tony Blair running the strip – one of Trump’s cornerstone measures.

Egyptian-born scholar Dalia Ziada said the much-heralded Gaza ceasefire could prove a deadly illusion.

Ziada, who defied her country’s consensus by backing Israel and was forced to flee after death threats, told The Sun: “Part of me is very happy because finally this brutal war is coming to an end.

“The hostages will be returned. The people in Gaza will be relieved from the horrors of the war.

“Hamas is obviously defeated to the point that they had to finally accept a ceasefire deal.”

But she praised Washington’s muscular return to Middle East power politics: “I am excited to see the United States coming back to the Middle East with its heavy weight and being involved on that level as a partner.”

Ziada’s optimism about a deal stops there, however – warning that the world is underestimating the nature of the enemy.

“This deal is being made with a terrorist organisation, Hamas,” she said.

“Hamas adopts the jihad ideology, violent resistance ideology. They do not believe in peace.”

Even the language, she noted, betrays Hamas’s intent.

“Actually, what they believe in is Hudna. Hudna is truce,” Ziada explained.

“It’s mainly: ‘Let’s take a break so we can rearm, regroup and come back and kill you again’.”

Hussain Abdul-Hussain, an experienced war journalist and researcher, agrees that Hamas will “absolutely not” honour disarmament.

He pointed to their reluctance throughout negotiations to relinquish weapons – and emphasised they have agreed to “freeze their activity and take a break” rather than “give this up for good”.

Abdul-Hussain believes the ceasefire will hold for a while, but not forever.

He ominously warned: “It [fighting] will come back. We just don’t know when.”

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Ziada argues that Hamas only accepted Trump’s ceasefire plan because they ran out of options.

She said: “Actually, it’s the last card in Hamas’ hands. The last card in Hamas’ hands was hostages. And that’s why they did everything they can to avoid giving away this card.

“But now Hamas has no other option but to accept, especially after President Trump’s very clear and very direct threatening to them that in case they do not agree, there will be total obliteration.”

But the deal is being struck with “Hamas leaders in suits” in Doha, not the hardened fighters still embedded in Gaza.

That split could prove explosive.

Ziada warned: “I don’t expect that the militia on the ground will be very cooperative.

“We started to see the first sign of this lack of cooperation from the very confused reports coming out of Hamas.”

‘Heavyweight murderers’ loose on the streets

While the remaining Hamas leaders have decided to make enough of the right noises to satisfy the peace deal conditions, they have had no contact with the prisoners who are to be released from Israeli jails.

As part of the deal, Israel will release 250 life sentence prisoners – who likely harbour a severe grudge against Israel and the West.

Richard Pater, CEO of the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM), said: “250 heavyweight murderers, Palestinian terrorists, are being released,

“They’re not being released back into the West Bank and they’ll never be allowed to enter Israel – but some of them are going to be moved to Gaza.”

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He said it is a major concern that one of the released convicts will become the new Yahya Sinwar – the terrorist mastermind of October 7.

Sinwar was himself released in a similar prisoner exchange.

Pater fears this deal is “kicking the can down the road”, because “there will be the motivation and the ability of these hardened terrorist leaders to potentially rebuild”.

‘Zero trust’

Asked whether she believed Hamas would stick to the deal, Ziada was brutally clear: “There are no guarantees. First of all, I have zero faith or zero trust in Hamas.

“One hundred per cent. I mean, zero, zero trust in Hamas.”

Even with heavyweights like Egypt, Qatar and Turkey leaning on Hamas to comply, she believes this first stage — halting fighting and releasing hostages — will be the easy part.

The rest of Trump’s 20-point peace plan will be far harder.

She said: “This is, by the way, the easiest step because this is mainly about stop the war, release the hostages, exchange prisoners. That’s it.

“The most difficult part is the other 19 points on the plan.”

Pater warned “there are 101 problems that can still occur” throughout stages two and three of the peace plan – when Hamas is supposed to disarm and the IDF eventually withdraw entirely.

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‘They will never disarm’

If anyone imagines Hamas laying down its weapons, Ziada said, they are deluding themselves.

“At this moment Hamas did not say very clearly that they will disarm,” she said.

“They will not disarm under any condition or any pressure. I cannot even picture it like Hamas going and handing their weapons because this means their end.”

Even a temporary pause in violence could serve to revive Hamas’s jihadist ambitions.

“Hamas was drained in the past month to the extent that they started to reach out to the camps of the people displaced inside Gaza and recruit teenagers,” Ziada revealed.

“This will once again revive Hamas appetite to go back to this jihadist struggle.”

And Hamas has already signalled its intent.

Ziada said: “Only days ago in the anniversary of October 7, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad issued a celebratory statement wherein they said, ‘we will continue our Jihad, we will continue our violent resistance’.”

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The terror within

Ziada’s most chilling warning, however, goes far beyond Gaza.

She said the threat has now metastasised into Western societies themselves.

“People are so focused on Gaza like we are all zooming in into Gaza, but we fail to see the consequences of what the past two years has done to our world,” she said.

“The threat to the UK is coming from inside the UK. The threat to the US security is coming from inside the US.

“The attack on the West will continue — the attack on Western values and Western principles and Western way of life will continue in different forms, either by violence or even through nonviolent means as we see in political arenas.”

Abdul-Hussain reminded us that violent Islamist attacks predate October 7, and similarly warned that threat is not going away.

He said: “This is an issue that the West will have to deal with, with or without peace or ceasefire or whatever arrangement exists between Israel and the Palestinians.

And Pater insisted that the UK needs a programme of deradicalisation just as much as Gaza.

He said: “For example, the UK banning the Muslim Brotherhood movement, proscribing it as a terror organisation, not being afraid to call out Islamic extremism for what it is, will be important steps to deradicalise the population.”

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“Palestine has become the all-encompassing flag and image for this Islamist global movement. But this movement exists.

“It exists in the West and Gaza is just an extension of it.”

A fragile hope

Yet even amid the warnings, Ziada said there is reason to hope.

She said: “The tears I saw in the eyes of the hostages’ families, their excitement that their children and family members will finally be coming back from this hell… it puts a smile on my face.”

For now, she admits, the world will celebrate a pause in the bloodshed.

But her message is clear: Hamas is not finished — and the West ignores that reality at its peril.

The US president told reporters that the bodies of Israelis who died in captivity in Gaza are ‘being unearthed’.

Israelis held in Gaza by Hamas and other armed groups are slated to “come back” on Monday, United States President Donald Trump said, with 20 living captives and the bodies of 28 others who died in captivity due to be handed over as part of the US-backed ceasefire deal.

Speaking to reporters at the White House late on Friday, Trump said Monday will be “big” as Hamas exchanges all 48 Israeli captives, both living and deceased, for roughly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

“Some of those bodies are being unearthed right now, as we speak. They’re working on it right now,” Trump said.

“It’s a tragedy. It’s a tragedy,” he said.

Of the living captives still held in Gaza, the US president added, “they’re in some pretty rough places, where only some people know where they are”.

Trump said he plans to travel to Cairo this weekend and separately speak at the Israeli Knesset before returning to the US.

Under the terms of the US-brokered peace deal for Gaza, Hamas agreed to release all captives within 72 hours following the start of a ceasefire.

Israel’s government ratified the ceasefire in the early hours of Friday, and it came into force later in the day. Israeli troops then began to withdraw from areas in Gaza to designated locations, and the countdown began on the 72 hours for Hamas to release captives.

Reports surfaced earlier this week that Hamas may struggle to locate and gather the remains of all the deceased captives, potentially complicating the planned exchange on Monday.

As Palestinians began to return to their war-torn homes on Friday amid the Israeli pullback, key questions about Gaza’s future remain uncertain – including plans for a future Palestinian state.

Trump, however, maintained an optimistic tone about both the first and later phases of his unfolding ceasefire plan.

Both Hamas and Israel, he said, are “all tired of fighting”.

“There is consensus on most of it and some of the details, like anything else, will be worked out,” Trump said.

“Because, you’ll find out that when you’re sitting in a beautiful room in Egypt, you know, it’s easy to work something out,” he said.

“But then sometimes it doesn’t work from a practical standpoint. But for the most part, there’s consensus,” he added.

The US president also appeared to be pleased with support for the deal from the European Union, Iran and Russia, saying that the peace plan will extend “beyond Gaza”.

“This is peace in the Middle East, and it’s a beautiful thing,” he said.

US President Donald Trump says Israeli captives held in Gaza will be released on Monday.