Palestinians return to ruins and U.S. troops land in Israel as ceasefire holds

GAZA CITY — The Gaza ceasefire held in its second day as tens of thousands of Palestinians returned to their neighborhoods Saturday and Israelis cheered Monday’s expected release of remaining hostages.

“Gaza is completely destroyed. I have no idea where we should live or where to go,” said Mahmoud al-Shandoghli as he walked through Gaza City. A boy climbed a shattered building to raise the Palestinian flag.

Israelis applauded President Trump, and some booed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner addressed a weekly rally in Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square that many hoped would be the last.

“To the hostages themselves, our brothers and sisters, you are coming home,” Witkoff told the crowd, estimated in the hundreds of thousands.

Kushner said they would celebrate Monday, when Israel’s military has said the 48 hostages still in Gaza would be freed. The government believes around 20 are alive. Kushner also noted the suffering in Gaza.

Israelis hugged and took selfies. Many waved U.S. flags. “It’s a really happy time, but we know that there are going to be some incredibly difficult moments coming,” said one person in the crowd, Yaniv Peretz.

About 200 U.S. troops arrived in Israel to monitor the ceasefire with Hamas. They will set up a center to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid as well as logistical and security assistance. The head of the U.S. military’s Central Command said he visited Gaza on Saturday to prepare it.

“This great effort will be achieved with no U.S. boots on the ground in Gaza,” Adm. Brad Cooper said in a statement. Witkoff, Kushner and Cooper met with senior U.S. and Israeli military officials in Gaza.

The Egyptian presidency in a statement late Saturday said Trump will co-chair a “peace summit” there Monday on Gaza and the wider Middle East. Earlier, France confirmed that President Emmanuel Macron would visit Egypt on Monday.

A copy of the signed ceasefire says Hamas must share all information related to any bodies of hostages that are not released within the first 72 hours, and that Israel will provide information about the remains of deceased Palestinians from Gaza held in Israel.

The photo of the document was obtained by the Associated Press and its veracity was confirmed by two officials, including one whose country was a signatory. Both requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the talks. The U.S. did not confirm whether it was authentic.

Hamas and Israel will share the information through a mechanism supported by mediators and the International Committee of the Red Cross. It will also ensure all of the dead hostages are exhumed and released.

The agreement says mediators and the ICRC will facilitate the exchange of the hostages and prisoners without public ceremonies or media coverage.

Israel is to free some 250 Palestinians serving prison sentences, as well as around 1,700 people seized from Gaza the last two years and held without charge. The Israel Prison Service said prisoners have been transferred to deportation facilities at Ofer and Ktzi’ot prisons, “awaiting instructions from the political echelon.”

Aid groups urged Israel to reopen more crossings to allow food and supplies into Gaza. A United Nations official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet public, said Israel has approved expanded aid deliveries, starting Sunday.

The World Food Program said it was ready to restore 145 food distribution points across the famine-stricken territory, once Israel allows for expanded deliveries. Before Israel sealed off Gaza in March, U.N. agencies provided food at 400 distribution points.

Though the timeline and how the food will enter Gaza remain unclear, the distribution points will allow Palestinians to access food at more locations than they could through the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which had operated four locations since taking over distribution in late May.

COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid, said more than 500 trucks entered Gaza on Friday, although many crossings remain closed.

Some 170,000 metric tons of food aid have been positioned in neighboring countries awaiting permission from Israel to restart deliveries.

Questions remain on who will govern the Gaza Strip after Israeli troops gradually pull back and whether Hamas will disarm, as called for in the ceasefire agreement.

Netanyahu, who unilaterally ended the previous ceasefire in March, has suggested Israel could resume its offensive if Hamas fails to disarm.

“If it’s achieved the easy way, so be it. If not, it will be achieved the hard way,” Netanyahu said Friday, pledging that the next stage would bring Hamas’ disarmament.

The scale of Gaza’s destruction will become clearer if the truce holds. And the death toll is expected to rise as more bodies are found.

A manager at northern Gaza’s Shifa Hospital told the Associated Press that 45 bodies pulled from the rubble in Gaza City had arrived over the last 24 hours. The manager, speaking on condition of anonymity for safety reasons, said the bodies had been missing for several days to two weeks.

The initial U.S. 20-point plan calls for Israel to maintain an open-ended military presence inside Gaza, along its border with Israel. An international force, composed largely of troops from Arab and Muslim countries, would be responsible for security in Gaza, though the timeline is unclear.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi on Saturday called for the Gaza deployment of an international force authorized by the U.N. Security Council.

The Israeli military has said it will continue to operate defensively from the roughly 50% of Gaza it still controls after pulling back to agreed-upon lines.

Witkoff told Israeli officials on Friday that the United States would establish a center in Israel to coordinate issues concerning Gaza until there is a permanent government, according to a readout of the meeting by a person who attended it and obtained by the AP. Another official who was not authorized to speak to the media confirmed the readout’s contents.

The readout said no U.S. soldiers will be on the ground in Gaza, but there will be people who report to the U.S. and aircraft might operate over the strip for monitoring.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel in the 2023 attack, killing some 1,200 people.

In Israel’s ensuing offensive, more than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and nearly 170,000 wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count 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 also triggered other conflicts in the region, sparked worldwide protests and led to allegations of genocide that Israel denies.

Hana, Metz, Deeb and Mednick write for the Associated Press. Hana reported from Gaza City, Metz from Jerusalem, El Deeb from Cairo and Mednick from Tel Aviv. AP writers Samy Magdy in Cairo, Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut and Jon Gambrell in Cairo contributed to this report.