Hamas official says disarmament ‘out of the question’; Israel prepares prisoners for exchange – live | Gaza

It is 6pm in Gaza and Israel. Here is a summary of the main developments covered on the blog so far today:

• Israel has begun transferring prisoners to two jails ahead of their release as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal, designed to lead to the release of hostages held by Hamas, the prison service said on Saturday. Thousands of staff, including prison officers, “operated throughout the night in order to implement the government’s decision: ‘The framework for the release of all Israeli hostages’,” a statement said.

• Israel is expected to release about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, including 250 serving long sentences for serious security offences, in exchange for the remaining hostages in Gaza. A list Israel published on Friday did not include high-profile prisoner Marwan Barghouti. Netanyahu’s office has confirmed it refuses to release Barghouti.

• The hostage and prisoner releases are expected to begin on Monday, two Egyptian officials briefed on the talks and a Hamas official said, although another official said they could occur as early as Sunday night. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to be publicly named speaking about the negotiations, reported the Associated Press (AP).

• Hamas’s disarmament as part of US president Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza is “out of the question”, a Hamas official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Saturday. “The proposed weapons handover is out of the question and not negotiable,” the official said. The US president has indicated the issue of Hamas surrendering its weapons would be addressed in the second phase of the peace plan.

• Trump has said that “for the most part, there is consensus” on how the next stages of how the Gaza ceasefire plan will work, but admitted that “some of the details … will be worked out”. In comments made on Friday, and reported by various news outlets, Trump spoke about the remaining hostages in Gaza, adding that Hamas were gathering them “now”. He said: “they’re in some pretty rough places”.

• The head of the US Central Command (Centcom) said on Saturday he visited Gaza to discuss post-conflict stabilisation and insisted no US troops will be deployed there. Adm Brad Cooper wrote on X that he had just returned from a trip to Gaza to discuss the creation of a Centcom-led “civil-military coordination centre” which will “support conflict stabilisation”.

• However, about 200 US troops have arrived in Israel to help retrieve hostages and monitor the ceasefire. 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.

• Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians returned to their Gaza neighbourhoods on Saturday, weaving through dust-shrouded streets as bulldozers clawed through the wreckage of two years of war and a ceasefire held in its second day.

• Aid groups are preparing to scale up relief work, with Doctors Without Borders, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) stating that they are ready to step up aid shipments. Trucks carrrying boxes of WFP aid were seen on Saturday arriving in Khan Younis and being distributed among Palestinians. A UN official speaking to the AP on the condition of anonymity said the UN had been given the green light by Israel to begin delivering scaled-up aid into Gaza starting on Sunday.

• Unicef and its partners are urging Israel to reopen more crossings and allow aid to flow into Gaza more freely. Speaking from central Gaza, Unicef spokesperson Tess Ingram said: “A ceasefire alone is not enough … it also needs to ensure a surge of humanitarian aid that begins to address the tremendous damage that has been done over the past two years.”

• Cogat, the Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid, said that more than 500 trucks entered Gaza on Friday, although many crossings remain closed. With a declared famine still under way in parts of the strip, Unicef has 1,300 trucks ready to enter, with more on the way, Ingram said.

• Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, and her Spanish counterpart, Pedro Sánchez, will travel to Egypt to attend an international summit on Gaza on Monday, their respective governments have confirmed. Trump has previously said he plans to meet “a lot of leaders” in Cairo on Monday to discuss the future of Gaza. Representatives from a range of countries, including the UK, Germany, France and Qatar, are expected to be in attendance.

• Gaza’s civil defence agency has said it recovered the bodies of 150 Palestinians since the ceasefire came into effect, while 9,500 are still missing. It added that 300,000 people have arrived in Gaza City since the truce began.

• Officials in Gaza have said that 5,000 public operations have been carried out since the ceasefire came into effect on Friday, including efforts to restore water and sewage infrastructure, as well as secure damaged buildings. About 1,200 medical and healthcare operations were conducted, such as treating the wounded and monitoring those injured, Al Jazeera reported, citing the Gaza government media office.

• Protesters flooded the streets of central London to march in support of Palestine on Saturday. Tens of thousands of demonstrators attended the march, organised by the Palestine Coalition, which includes the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War and other groups.

• International journalists in Israel have called for reporters to be granted immediate access to Gaza after the rapidly negotiated ceasefire came into effect, joining a long list of international media organisations demanding press freedom in the devastated territory. In a statement released on Friday, the Foreign Press Association (FPA) urged Israel to “immediately open the borders and allow international media free and independent access to the Gaza Strip” now that hostilities have ceased.

• Lebanese president Joseph Aoun condemned Israel on Saturday for carrying out overnight strikes on civilian facilities that the health ministry said killed at least one person. The Lebanese health ministry said an Israeli strike on the al-Msayleh area left one person dead and seven others injured.

• Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan will meet Syrian officials, in Ankara on Sunday, the Turkish foreign ministry said. Defence minister Yasar Guler, intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin, and their Syrian counterparts will attend the security cooperation meeting, the ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

Hamas’s disarmament as part of US president Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza is “out of the question”, a Hamas official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Saturday.

“The proposed weapons handover is out of the question and not negotiable,” the official said.

The US president has indicated the issue of Hamas surrendering its weapons would be addressed in the second phase of the peace plan.

In response to a query by the Guardian on Unicef’s plans to scale up its aid operation as a result of the Gaza ceasefire, a spokesperson for UN agency said on Saturday:

We expect the ceasefire will allow us to scale up significantly from tomorrow [Sunday]. Unicef has more than 1,300 trucks stationed at points around the Gaza Strip, ready to bring in tents, nutrition supplies, medical supplies and more.

The ceasefire must, finally, afford humanitarian actors the opportunity to safely roll out the massive response inside the Gaza Strip that is so desperately needed. This includes unimpeded access to reach all children and families with essential food and nutrition, health care and psychosocial support, clean water, and sanitation, education, and learning, as well as cash assistance and the resumption of commercial trucking operations.

Unicef has been bringing trucks in consistently for months and continue to do so, including this past week. In recent days, Unicef brought in hygiene kits, baby diapers and tents.

From tomorrow [Sunday], we expect to collect supplies for children with disabilities, tents, hygiene kits, water tanks, RUTF [ready-to-use therapeutic food], menstrual hygiene supplies, winter clothes, plastic tarps and diapers.

As the scale-up comes into effect, we will be prioritising nutrition supplies to fight the famine, items for the production of safe drinking water and other urgent water and sanitation needs, as well as supplies to help families cope with the impending winter.

Israel has begun transferring prisoners to two jails ahead of their release as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal, designed to lead to the release of hostages held by Hamas, the prison service said on Saturday.

Thousands of staff, including prison officers, “operated throughout the night in order to implement the government’s decision: ‘The framework for the release of all Israeli hostages’,” a statement said, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

About 2,000 Palestinian prisoners are to be freed from Israeli jails, including 250 serving long sentences for serious security offences. In exchange, Hamas has until Monday to hand over its 48 remaining Israeli hostages – living and dead.

The head of the US Central Command (Centcom) said on Saturday he visited Gaza to discuss post-conflict stabilisation and insisted no US troops will be deployed there.

Adm Brad Cooper wrote on X that he had just returned from a trip to Gaza to discuss the creation of a Centcom-led “civil-military coordination centre” which will “support conflict stabilisation”.

However, as reported earlier, about 200 US troops have arrived in Israel (see 1.14pm) to help retrieve hostages and monitor the ceasefire.

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.

Cooper wrote on X:

America’s sons and daughters in uniform are answering the call to deliver peace in the Middle East in support of the commander in chief’s direction in this historic moment.

Cooper was appointed in early August to lead Centcom, the US military command responsible for the Middle East.

Aid groups were preparing to scale up relief work, one of the many challenges ahead as a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas entered its second day, reports the Associated Press (AP).

“When people get there, they’re going to find rubble. They’ll find that their homes and their neighbourhoods have been reduced to dust,” Unicef spokesperson Tess Ingram told the AP on Friday.

Unicef and its partners are urging Israel to reopen more crossings and allow aid to flow into Gaza more freely. Meanwhile, about 200 US troops arrived in Israel to help retrieve hostages and monitor the ceasefire.

Speaking from central Gaza, Ingram said:

A ceasefire alone is not enough.

Yes, it stops the killing and injuring of children, hopefully, but it also needs to ensure a surge of humanitarian aid that begins to address the tremendous damage that has been done over the past two years.

Cogat, the Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid, said that more than 500 trucks entered Gaza on Friday, although many crossings remain closed. With a declared famine still under way in parts of the strip, Unicef has 1,300 trucks ready to enter, with more on the way, Ingram said.

The aid is among the 170,000 metric tonnes that have been positioned in neighbouring countries awaiting permission from Israel to restart deliveries that have been suspended.

The days since the announcement of the ceasefire have moved swiftly. Israel’s military confirmed it had taken effect on Friday and said the 48 hostages still in Gaza would be freed on Monday. A UN official, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet public, said Israel also approved expanded aid deliveries starting Sunday.