Hamas says Israel withdraws from key Gaza road

A Hamas official said Israeli troops completed their withdrawal on Sunday from a strategic road cutting through the Gaza Strip, part of a fragile truce deal that Israel said it was implementing.

“Israeli forces have dismantled their positions and military posts and completely withdrawn their tanks from the Netzarim Corridor on Salaheddin Road, allowing vehicles to pass freely in both directions,” an official from the Hamas-run interior ministry said.

AFP journalists saw no troops in the area Sunday as cars, buses, pickup trucks and donkey carts travelled along the road from both the north and south, crossing the Netzarim Corridor where an Israeli checkpoint used to stand.

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According to a senior Hamas official, the Israeli withdrawal from Netzarim had been scheduled for Sunday under the terms of a truce that took effect on January 19 after more than 15 months of war.

AFP is unable to independently verify the details of the ceasefire agreement as its text has not been made public.

Asked about Sunday’s withdrawal, an Israeli security official, who requested anonymity, told AFP: “We are preparing to implement the ceasefire agreement according to the guidelines of the political echelon.”

The war in Gaza began with Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, and after months of fruitless negotiations, a ceasefire was sealed in the lead-up to US President Donald Trump’s inauguration for a second term.

Hostage-prisoner swap

The 2023 attack, the deadliest in Israeli history, resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Hamas also took 251 hostages into Gaza, of whom 73 remain in the territory, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said on Saturday that the war had killed at least 48,181 people in the Palestinian territory.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, Israel and Hamas are conducting multiple rounds of hostage-prisoner swaps.

The fifth such exchange took place on Saturday, and saw the release of three Israeli hostages and 183 Palestinian prisoners.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced Hamas as “monsters” after the handover of the three captives, who appeared emaciated and were forced to speak on a stage ahead of their release.

READ MORE: Trump: ‘US will take over Gaza, we’ll own it’

The hospital treating the hostages said Or Levy and Eli Sharabi were in a “poor medical condition”, while Ohad Ben Ami was in a “severe nutritional state”.

“Dad, is it really you? I can’t believe you’re here,” said one of Ben Ami’s daughters, her eyes wide with disbelief, as the freed Israeli-German hostage embraced her at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital.

Of the prisoners freed from Israeli jails, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said seven required hospitalisation, decrying “brutality” and mistreatment in jail.

“We always dreamed that this would happen, that one day the prison director would be forced to open the gates,” said freed prisoner Shadi Barghouti, still in a grey prison tracksuit.

Halfway around the world, in Bangkok, five Thai farm workers held hostage by Hamas and freed in an earlier swap wept with joy and hugged their loved ones as they returned home on Sunday.

“I thank everyone who helped us make it out. We wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for them. We can finally return to our motherland,” Pongsak Tan said.

‘Do the job’

The latest exchange came as negotiations were set to begin on the next phase of the ceasefire, which is intended to pave the way for a permanent end to the war.

On Saturday, Netanyahu ordered negotiators to return to Qatar, which helped mediate the truce, while repeating his vow to crush Hamas.

“With the completion of the release phase, Prime Minister Netanyahu has instructed the dispatch of a negotiation delegation to Doha to discuss technical details of the agreement,” his office said in a statement.

It added that on his return to Israel from the United States, where he became the first foreign leader to meet Trump in the White House since the inauguration, Netanyahu will “hold a security cabinet meeting regarding negotiations for the second phase of the hostage release deal”.

Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim on Saturday said Israel’s “lack of commitment in implementing the first phase… exposes this agreement to danger and thus it may stop or collapse”.

Earlier this week, Trump sparked global outrage by suggesting the United States should take control of the Gaza Strip and clear out its inhabitants.

READ MORE: Israel blocks Gazans’ return to territory’s north unless civilian woman hostage freed

He said Egypt or Jordan could take in Palestinians from Gaza – an idea both countries have flatly rejected.

The Israeli defence minister this week ordered the army to prepare for “voluntary” departures from Gaza.

Trump has ruled out sending American troops to the territory, and in an interview with Fox News on Saturday, Netanyahu said Israel was willing to “do the job”.

“I think that President Trump’s proposal is the first fresh idea in years, and it has the potential to change everything in Gaza,” said Netanyahu.

Trump “never said he wants American troops to do the job. Guess what? We’ll do the job,” he added.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty was heading to Washington for talks on Sunday, while Jordan’s King Abdullah II was due to meet Trump at the White House on February 11.

Egypt will host a summit of Arab nations on February 27 to discuss “the latest serious developments” concerning the Palestinian territories, its foreign ministry said Sunday.