Palestinians gather to collect aid supplies from trucks that entered Gaza, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip October 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

Thousands of Palestinians streamed north along the coast of Gaza on Saturday, trekking by foot, car and cart back to their abandoned homes as a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian terrorist group Hamas appeared to be holding.

Israeli troops pulled back under the first phase of a US-brokered agreement reached this week to end the war, which has killed tens of thousands of people and left much of the enclave in ruins.

“It is an indescribable feeling; praise be to God,” said Nabila Basal as she traveled by foot with her daughter, who she said had suffered a head wound in the war. “We are very, very happy that the war has stopped, and the suffering has ended.”

US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was in Gaza early Saturday to observe the Israeli military redeployment, Israeli Army Radio reported, citing a security source.

He was joined by the head of the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM), Admiral Brad Cooper, who said in a statement that his visit was part of the establishment of a task force that would support stabilization efforts in Gaza, though US troops would not be deployed inside the enclave.

CLOCK TICKING ON RELEASE OF HOSTAGES

Once the Israeli forces had completed their redeployment on Friday, which keeps them out of major urban areas but still in control of roughly half the enclave, the clock began ticking for Hamas to release its hostages within 72 hours.

“We are very excited, waiting for our son and for all the 48 hostages,” said Hagai Angrest, whose son Matan is among the 20 Israeli hostages believed to still be alive. “We are waiting for the phone call.”

Twenty-six hostages have been declared dead in absentia and the fate of two more is unknown.

According to the agreement, after the hostages are handed over, Israel will free 250 Palestinians serving long sentences in its prisons and 1,700 detainees captured during the war.

Hundreds of trucks per day are expected to surge into Gaza carrying food and medical aid, according to the agreement.

TRUMP EXPECTED TO TRAVEL TO ISRAEL AND EGYPT

But questions remain about whether the ceasefire and hostage-prisoner exchange deal, the biggest step yet towards ending two years of war, will lead to a lasting peace under Trump’s 20-point plan.

Much could still go wrong. Further steps in Trump’s plan have yet to be agreed. These include how the demolished Gaza Strip is to be ruled when fighting ends, and the ultimate fate of Hamas, which has rejected Israel’s demands it disarm.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump expressed confidence the ceasefire would hold, saying: “They’re all tired of the fighting.” He said he believed there was a “consensus” on the next steps but acknowledged some details still have to be worked out.

During the Hamas attack on Israeli communities, military bases and a music festival on October 7, 2023, terrorists killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and captured 251 hostages.

Trump is expected to visit the region on Monday and address the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, the first US president to do so since George W. Bush in 2008.

Trump said he would also travel to Egypt and that other world leaders were expected to be present.

Laura Loomer arrives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., September 10, 2024. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

Far-right activist Laura Loomer slammed President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday over its deepening defense ties with Qatar and made false accusations that spread on social media that the Pentagon was giving it a military base on US soil.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met with Qatar’s Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman al-Thani at the Pentagon earlier in the day, announcing that Qatar would pay for a facility at a US air base in Idaho. He did not say the US would give Qatar the base, or any base in the United States.

The facility, which has been in discussions for years, would support Qatar’s plans to train pilots on 12 F-15 fighter jets that the country is buying and which would be located there, a US official told Reuters. The facility would include hangars to shield the aircraft from the elements and a squadron operations building for the pilots, the official said.

U.S. TO SUPERVISE CONSTRUCTION

The arrangement, which the official said was in line with those agreed with other US allies, would result in the facility being built by local contractors under US military supervision and funded by Qatar. Pilots from Singapore already train at the US base.

“We’re signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatar Emiri Air Force facility at the Mountain Home Air Base in Idaho,” Hegseth said, alongside his Qatari counterpart.

Shortly after the announcement, Loomer said she did not think she would vote in next year’s mid-term elections.

“Never thought I’d see Republicans give terror financing Muslims from Qatar a MILITARY BASE on US soil so they can murder Americans,” Loomer wrote on X.

She posted a clip of Trump speaking in 2017, when he accused Qatar of historically funding terrorism “at a very high level.”

In the wake of her remarks, Hegseth posted on X: “To be clear, Qatar will not have their own base in the United States — nor anything like a base. We control the existing base, like we do with all partners.”

Qatar’s embassy spokesperson said the facility in Idaho would not be a Qatari air base.

“Qatar has made an initial 10-year commitment to construct and maintain a dedicated facility within an existing US air base, intended for advanced training and to enhance interoperability,” Ali Al-Ansari said in a statement.

He said the arrangement was similar to existing programs the US has with other international allies.

Qatar is a US security partner and host to al-Udeid Air Base, the largest US military facility in the Middle East. It acted as a mediator alongside Egypt in talks between Israel and Hamas.

A self-proclaimed “Islamophobe” who for years argued the September 11, 2001, attacks were an inside job, Loomer has a history of provocative and self-promotional actions, including handcuffing herself to Twitter’s headquarters in New York in 2018 after the platform banned her for hate speech.

With 1.8 million followers on X and her own weekly program that draws a large audience, Loomer can say she speaks for many of the MAGA faithful and influences their views of the Trump administration.

In April, Trump fired US General Timothy Haugh, who was the director of the National Security Agency and head of US Cyber Command. The New York Times reported that Loomer had called for his ouster.

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar looks on as Palestinian Hamas supporters take part in an anti-Israel rally over tension in Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque, in Gaza City, Oct. 1, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

i24 News – A handwritten memo authored by late Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar shows the arch terrorist’s instructions to his men ahead of the October 7 attack included orders to target Israelis with acts of violence that would shock and destabilize the country. Sinwar specified that the violence should be filmed and broadcast, according to a New York Times report on Saturday.

“Two or three operations, in which an entire neighborhood, kibbutz, or something similar will be burned, must be prepared,” the memo is quoted as saying.

Many homes were set on fire in the southern Israeli communities devastated by Palestinian jihadists on October 7, and acts of barbaric violence were posted to social media and live-streamed.

The document was discovered in the underground hideout of Muhammed Sinwar, who briefly served as the top Hamas official in Gaza following the killing of his brother before being killed in an IDF strike.

The NYT report cites a confidential analysis of the memo and of intercepted Hamas communications on the day of the attack by Israel’s Gazit institute, a think tank affiliated with Israel’s military intelligence.

“Hamas leadership planned and carried out an attack that featured acts of ‘extraordinary brutality,’” the researchers concluded. “Its aim was to cause great turmoil in the country and the military.”