Israel expects hostages to be freed from Gaza 'in a few hours' as ceasefire holds

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CAIRO (AP) — Israel said Sunday it expected all living hostages held in Gaza to be released Monday in its breakthrough ceasefire deal with Hamas, as Palestinians awaited the release of hundreds of prisoners held in Israel and a surge of aid into the famine-stricken territory.

“In a few hours, we will all be reunited,” Israel’s military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, said in a statement.

U.S. President Donald Trump planned to visit Israel and Egypt on Monday to celebrate the ceasefire announced last week in the two-year war.

“The war is over,” Trump asserted to reporters as he departed, adding he thought the ceasefire would hold. He said he would be “proud” to visit Gaza.

Israeli government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian said all 20 living hostages were expected to be released at one time to the Red Cross, then driven to a military base to reunite with families or, if needed, immediately to a hospital.

After the hostages are freed, Israel was ready to release about 2,000 Palestinian detainees and receive the 28 hostages believed to be dead.

An international task force will start working to locate deceased hostages who are not returned within 72 hours, said Gal Hirsch, Israel’s coordinator for the hostages and the missing.

“The reality is, some of the hostages we may never get back,” U.S. Vice President JD Vance told Fox News.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose name was booed repeatedly Saturday at a weekly rally for the hostages in Tel Aviv, said Monday would be a “path of healing.” Many Israelis have accused him of drawing out the war for political aims, which he has denied.

Timing has not been announced for the release of Palestinian prisoners. They include 250 people serving life sentences in addition to 1,700 seized from Gaza during the war and held without charge.

A Palestinian official said a Hamas delegation was in Cairo speaking with mediators about the list of prisoners. The official said Hamas is pressing for the release of Marwan Barghouti, the most popular Palestinian leader and a potentially unifying figure, along with several others serving life sentences. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. There was no immediate comment from Israel, which views Barghouti as a terrorist leader.

Israel has warned Palestinians in the West Bank against celebrating after the releases, according to a prisoner’s family and a Palestinian official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it. Israel’s military did not immediately respond to questions.

The United Nations late Sunday reported “real progress” on humanitarian aid in Gaza, saying it and partners distributed hundreds of thousands of hot meals and bread. Cooking gas entered the territory for the first time since March, during the previous ceasefire. The U.N. said Israel has now approved 190,000 metric tons of aid to enter, up from 170,000.

The Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid in Gaza said the amount of aid entering was expected to increase to around 600 trucks per day, as stipulated in the agreement.

“Much of Gaza is a wasteland," U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told The Associated Press. He said the U.N. has a plan for the next two months to also restore basic medical and other services and remove rubble.

Food distribution sites run by the controversial U.S. and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation are being shut down, an Egyptian official and another official in the region told the AP.

Trump, who pushed to clinch the ceasefire deal, was expected to arrive Monday morning in Israel. He will meet with families of the hostages and speak at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, according to the White House.

Trump will continue to Egypt, where the office of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has said he will co-chair a “peace summit” Monday with regional and international leaders. Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, will attend, Mahmoud al-Habbash, a judge and adviser to Abbas, told the AP.

Key questions about governance of Gaza and the post-war fate of Hamas, including its proposed disarmament, have yet to be resolved.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on X that he had instructed the military to prepare to begin destroying the network of Hamas-built tunnels under Gaza “through the international mechanism that will be established under the leadership and supervision of the U.S.” once the hostages are released.

How that will be achieved, as Israeli forces have pulled back within Gaza, was not immediately clear.

Palestinians streamed back to areas vacated by Israeli forces. Satellite photos taken Saturday and analyzed by the AP showed a line of vehicles traveling north to Gaza City.

Palestinian flags stood out against the dust-covered ruins. Mohamed Samy said he immediately went to check his home.

“It was flattened, just like everything else in Jabaliya,” Samy said. It was an empty plot of land. “It was like the building never even existed in that place. I questioned my sanity.”

Armed police in Gaza City and southern Gaza patrolled the streets and secured aid trucks in areas where Israel's military had withdrawn, residents said. The police force is part of the Hamas-run Interior Ministry.

The ministry said it would allow members of armed gangs not involved in the killing of Palestinians to turn themselves in as early as Monday to “repent and be pardoned.”

First responders searched previously inaccessible areas for bodies under rubble. Health officials said 233 had been brought to hospitals since Friday, when the truce went into effect. Some were only bones.

Yasser el-Bureis, at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, said his family had finally retrieved the remains of two cousins.

“For five months, we didn’t manage to recover the bodies,” he said.

The war began when Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage.

In Israel’s ensuing offensive, more than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants but says around half the deaths were women and children. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government, and the U.N. and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties.

The war has destroyed large swaths of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its 2 million residents. It has also triggered other conflicts in the region, sparked worldwide protests and led to allegations of genocide that Israel denies.

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Lidman reported from Tel Aviv. Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Cairo, Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel, Abby Sewell and Bassem Mroue in Beirut, and Jalal Bwaitel and Sam Metz in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war