Image source, EPA

As we've just reported, Trump will be travelling to Egypt on Monday, following his trip to Israel.

The Elysee Palace has confirmed that Emmanuel Macron will also travel to Egypt for the talks.

He'll join US President Donald Trump and Egypt's Abdul Fattah al-Sisi for a summit in support of the Gaza peace.

In a statement, Macron's office says he'll use the meeting in Sharm El-Sheikh to "express his full support for the implementation of the agreement" and reiterate France's support for a two-state solution.

Macron is the first European leader to confirm his attendance, but multiple Italian outlets have been reporting that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will also travel to Egypt.

And citing government sources, Spanish news agency EFE reports Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will also be joining Trump and other world leaders to support the ceasefire plan.

We have yet to receive official confirmation from the Italian or Spanish governments.

Lyse Doucet
Chief international correspondent

When US President Joe Biden landed in Israel on October 18, 2023, he hugged Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Herzog on the tarmac as he embraced a nation in grief as the Gaza war gathered steam.

President Trump will be greeted by the same leaders when he flies in on Monday morning to hail his deal.

He’ll only stay several hours. But his visit highlights how this deal was done because he exerted unprecedented pressure - on Hamas and his close friend Netanyahu.

Some families of hostages, many of whom blame Israel’s premier for prolonging their agony, will thank the US president in person. Trump will also deliver a speech in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.

Then he heads to Sharm El-Sheikh where he’s said “a lot of leaders”, some of whom also played pivotal roles, will join him at a signing ceremony.

Never has the first phase of a Middle East peace deal been celebrated with such fanfare.

It’s a measure of how hard it’s been to reach this point and even harder to go further without this kind of high-level engagement.

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Jerusalem

I’ve just heard from Hanaa Almadhoun, a nurse in Gaza who I have been in touch with for months.

She tells me she tried to return to her neighbourhood in northern Gaza yesterday, but quickly turned back around again.

“The situation there is very difficult. There is no life,” she tells me over WhatsApp.

“Everything was destroyed. Everywhere, there was debris, including the remains of things that we couldn’t even recognise anymore, and unexploded ordnance.”

Hanaa says it will take time for the rubble to be cleared from the roads and for emergency points to be set up offering basic services.

“The situation is very difficult. I don’t think people can stand living there. They have just come to check on their houses - to see if they’re standing or not,” she says.

Hanaa’s parents’ home is still standing, “but most of the buildings in the same street are severely damaged”.

Her own home was destroyed in Israeli bombing early in the war, and the homes and businesses of other family members have since also been destroyed, she says.

Image source, Reuters

Israel has begun transferring "national security prisoners" to the Ofer and Ketziot jails, the prison service says.

Thousands of staff "operated throughout the night to implement the government’s decision: 'The framework for the release of all Israeli hostages'", the spokesperson says.

It adds it is "awaiting instructions from the political echelon and the continuation of operational activity to enable the return of the hostages to Israel".

A reminder: As part of the ceasefire agreement, Israel is set to release 250 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. In exchange Hamas has until 12:00 local time (10:00 BST) on Monday to release the remaining Israeli hostages.

No US troops will enter Gaza, a statement issued by US Central Command (Centcom) Adm Brad Cooper confirms.

Centcom is leading "a civil-military co-ordination centre" that aims to support the ceasefire, Cooper says.

As part of that effort, 200 US troops are being deployed to Israel to monitor the situation.

"This great effort will be achieved with no US boots on the ground in Gaza", Cooper adds.

US Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff has visited an IDF base in Gaza, Reuters and Fox News report.

Witkoff can be seen visiting the Re'im base with Israeli military earlier today in the picture below, and is reportedly in the territory to observe the ceasefire.

Image source, Reuters

Rushdi Abualouf
Gaza correspondent, in Istanbul

Hamas has recalled about 7,000 members of its security forces to reassert control over areas of Gaza recently vacated by Israeli troops, appointing five new governors all with military backgrounds, some of whom previously commanded brigades in its armed wing to oversee operations, according to local sources.

The mobilisation order was reportedly issued via phone calls and text messages that read: “We declare a general mobilisation in response to the call of national and religious duty, to cleanse Gaza of outlaws and collaborators with Israel. You must report within 24 hours to your designated locations using your official codes.”

Reports from Gaza suggest that armed Hamas units have already deployed across several districts, some wearing civilian clothes and others in the blue uniforms of the Gaza police.

The Hamas mobilisation had been widely anticipated amid growing uncertainty about who will govern Gaza once the war ends, a key issue that could complicate the start of the second phase of US President Donald Trump’s plan, which calls for Hamas to disarm.

A Hamas official abroad declined to comment directly on reports of the security deployment but told the BBC: “We cannot leave Gaza at the mercy of thieves and militias backed by the Israeli occupation. Our weapons are legitimate, they exist to resist occupation and they will remain as long as the occupation continues.”

A retired Palestinian security officer who served for years with the Palestinian Authority in Gaza said he feared the territory was sliding towards another round of internal bloodshed.

“Hamas hasn’t changed. It still believes that weapons and violence are the only means to keep its movement alive,” he told the BBC.

These developments since the ceasefire have sparked deep concern among Gazans already worn down by two years of devastating conflict.

• You can read more about the mobilisation of Hamas fighters in Gaza here

As we enter the second day of the ceasefire, more Palestinians are making the difficult journeys to their homes in Gaza's north - though many are destroyed or no longer standing.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, EPA

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Anadolu/Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase of a ceasefire plan earlier this week, but many details for later phases are still to be ironed out.

Disarmament: There is discussion over whether Hamas will agree to disarm and demilitarise. It has previously said it will not disarm until a Palestinian state has been established. Israel's PM said on Friday demilitarisation could be achieved either "the easy way or the hard way", appearing to mean he would be prepared to send troops back into Gaza to demilitarise Hamas.

Governance: Under the terms of the agreement, the Palestinian Authority would govern Gaza, once it has made reforms. But Netanyahu has appeared to push back on that idea, especially when addressing Israelis. Hamas has also said it expects to have some future role in Gaza as part of a "unified Palestinian movement".

Israeli troop withdrawal: Another sticking point is the extent of Israeli troop withdrawal. Israel says its first withdrawal will see it retaining control of around 53% of Gaza. A White House plan indicates further withdrawals to around 40% and then 15%. That final stage would be a "security perimeter" that would "remain until Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat". The wording here is vague and gives no clear timeline for full Israeli withdrawal - something Hamas is likely to want clarity on.

• What we know about the Gaza ceasefire agreement?

There’s an awful lot still to work out in the Gaza ceasefire planpublished at 13:07 BST 11 October

13:07 BST 11 October

Jeremy Bowen
International Editor

Image source, Maayan Toaf/HANDOUT HANDOUT/EPA/Shutterstock

If you look at Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan there is very little detail in it.

For instance on the suggested structure of governance of Gaza, there is the so-called “Board of Peace” that the US president himself says he will chair, and which former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is meant to be involved in.

But Hamas said last night in a statement with other Palestinian factions that Gaza should not be governed by foreigners. Commentators have said that idea reeks of colonialism and that it should be governed by Palestinians. So there’s a big question about what kind of technocratic governance could be put in place in Gaza.

There’s also a lot of discussion about Hamas’s willingness to disarm. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Hamas can disarm the “easy way or the hard way” - presumably meaning the Israeli military going back to war to disarm Hamas themselves if it doesn’t do it willingly.

It’s a very delicate structure, and the foundations of the ceasefire deal – apart from the will of Trump – are weak. The agreement of the deal is not well written and it does not have a granular, precise structure underlying it.

The sides have said where they want to go but they haven’t said how they’re going to get there.

• What does wording of Trump's Gaza ceasefire agreement tell us?

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Jerusalem

Anticipation is building in Israel, as the deadline for the hostages to be returned home nears.

As we have been reporting, 48 hostages are due to be returned to Israel – 47 of whom were taken in the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attacks. Twenty are believed to be alive.

Shay Shimoni, whose mother was killed at Kibbutz Nir Oz on 7 October, says it is a time of anxiety and hope.

“We’re feeling very stressed while anticipating the return of the hostages and the end of the war. We’re hoping we can start healing,” she tells me over WhatsApp.

In a separate message, a community member from Kibbutz Be’eri - which was also targeted in the attacks - tells me she is hoping that the hostages will be returned “today or tomorrow and that things will get better”.

You can read about the hostages still being held in Gaza here

Tom Bennett
Reporting from Jerusalem

Image source, Getty Images

Israel is preparing to receive the 20 hostages that are thought to be alive at some point before 12:00 local time (10:00 BST) on Monday.

One of the hospitals set to receive them ran a dress-rehearsal with actors pretending to be hostages - and ran through a range of different scenarios - according to NBC News.

Upon arrival at hospital, rather than being ushered straight into medical check-ups, the hostages will be given a choice of what to do - part of the psychological process of restoring their sense of agency after more than two years in captivity.

There are a further 26 hostages who are thought to be deceased, with two others whose fate is unknown. It's expected some deceased hostages will be released in the coming days, but it's thought Hamas does not know the whereabouts of some others and so their release may take longer.

The deceased hostages will be received by military personnel, with a small ceremony led by a military rabbi to take place in their honour, the Times of Israel reports. They will then be taken to be checked by forensic experts.

Image source, Reuters

Gaza's Hamas-run Civil Defence Agency has recently provided an update on its rescue operations in the territory.

The agency says 300,000 people have arrived in Gaza City since the ceasefire started, but no tents or houses are available to accommodate people who have returned north.

Around 700,000 people from Gaza City and the north were displaced by the Israeli offensive, which saw intense aerial bombardment and the entry of troops into some neighbourhoods.

The agency has been carrying out rescue and relief missions in the area, and in the process it has recovered the bodies of 150 Palestinians, it says.

• For context: It does not specify when the people recovered died, and they could have been previously trapped beneath the rubble.

In total, the agency says there are 9,500 Palestinians still missing across the territory.

It adds it has received 75 distress calls since dawn today, and calls on the Red Cross to co-ordinate with Israel to help locate missing people, as it lacks the equipment to retrieve the bodies of all of those who have been killed.

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Jerusalem

Image source, Reuters

While much remains unknown about how the coming days will unfold, this is not the first time that the complex process of returning hostages to Israel has been conducted.

As with releases during previous ceasefires, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will act as a neutral intermediary in the handover.

Speaking during the ceasefire earlier this year, an ICRC official described such operations as “very complex”.

Among the biggest challenges, they said, were the dangers posed by unexploded ordnance, destroyed and damaged infrastructure, and large crowds.

The previous hostage handovers involved highly-choreographed Hamas ceremonies. A copy of the agreement shared by Israeli media states that this time they will take place “without any public ceremonies or media coverage”.

In the previous operation, the Israeli military was prepared through the outskirts of Gaza to receive the hostages, with reception points set up across the border. Medical personnel and social workers were among those waiting there.

"We start with vitamins, something small to eat and drink, and then [reuniting them with] the families," Col Dr Avi Banov, deputy chief of the Israel Defense Forces medical corps, told the BBC at the time.

The hostages were then flown in specially adapted helicopters to hospitals for medical examinations.

• You can read more about how the last operations unfolded here

The UN's Palestinian aid agency says it has enough food to feed every Palestinian in Gaza for three months.

In a briefing this morning, Unrwa's communications director, Juliette Touma, says that distributing the aid "is absolutely critical in controlling the spread of famine".

In August, famine was confirmed in Gaza City and its surrounding area by a UN-backed food security body.

Touma has repeated a call to allow aid into the territory immediately to address widespread hunger.

Under the terms of the first phase of the Gaza deal, about 600 lorry loads of aid a day are supposed to head into the Strip from when the ceasefire came into effect - which was Friday at 12:00 local time (10:00 BST).

UN is back in charge of aid - this appears to be a huge sea changepublished at 11:14 BST 11 October

11:14 BST 11 October

Jeremy Bowen
International Editor

Image source, Reuters

The UN is preparing to bring in hundreds and hundreds of aid trucks a day to Gaza. This is a huge sea change.

If we look back, Israel - without providing convincing evidence publicly or to the UN - claimed UN food was being stolen by Hamas in Gaza. It set up a body with the US called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to replace the UN system.

A BBC Panorama investigation in September included convincing figures from a body called Armed Conflict Location and Event Data that showed at least 1,300 Palestinians have been killed at those sites.

Now it seems the old system is back. The UN is in charge of bringing aid in, and it appears, as far as we can tell, that GHF sites have been closed in Gaza.

A video on social media appears to show Palestinians picking around the ruins of one of the sites located in the north close to Gaza City. I'm told others in Rafah in the south, where Israel still has troops, have also ceased operations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said many times that there is a food surplus in Gaza and that there was no starvation. But he has now agreed that hundreds of UN aid trucks will now go into the territory and the GHF, which he was so instrumental in setting up to try to get around the UN, now appears, as far as we can see, to be in the dustbin of history.

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Jerusalem

We’ve just been speaking to 24-year-old Esraa Shaheen, who returned to her home in northern Gaza during the ceasefire earlier this year.

She was then displaced to the south again after that truce broke down in March.

• For context: In January, a ceasefire halted fighting between Israel and Hamas. It held for two months before an intense wave of Israeli air strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza broke the fragile truce

She says the men in her family have already returned north “to see the area, the house, and to try to sort things so we can all go back”.

“They say the things we saw in the north last time we went back are nothing compared to now. There is twice as much destruction,” she says.

“They say there is no infrastructure at all - the roads are closed, there is no water, bad signal. We think it might be two weeks until we can return.”

Esraa still can’t believe that a ceasefire deal is in place and worries that it will not last.

“We’re scared to be happy,” she says.

The 48 Israeli hostages remaining in Gaza are expected to be released in the coming days, with Hamas required to meet a 72-hour deadline to return them to Israel as part of the ceasefire plan.

Twenty people are thought to still be alive. Among them are:

Ariel Cunio, 28, was abducted in the attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz on 7 October. Ariel's partner, Arbel Yehud, was freed in January 2025 under a deal that saw Hamas hand over 25 living and eight dead hostages during a two-month ceasefire.

David Cunio, 35, another of Ariel's brothers, was also kidnapped from Nir Oz.

Gali and Ziv Berman, 28-year-old twin brothers, were abducted from Kibbutz Kfar Aza with their neighbour, Emily Damari. Ziv was held with Emily for 40 days before they were separated. She was released in January 2025 during the last ceasefire.

Matan Angrest, a 22-year-old Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier, was in a tank that was attacked near the Gaza perimeter fence on 7 October.

Matan Zangauker, 25, was taken with his partner Ilana Gritzewsky from Nir Oz. Ilana was released during the November 2023 ceasefire.

You can see the full list of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza in our news story.

It's been nearly 24 hours since a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect, as part of a US-brokered deal that the Israeli government approved earlier this week. Here's what you need to know.

• From the moment the ceasefire came into effect on Friday at 12:00 local time (10:00 BST), Hamas was given 72 hours to release all the Israeli hostages from Gaza - we're now 48 hours away from that deadline

• Hamas is pushing for the release of certain high-profile Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, whose names were not included on a list of some 250 prisoners published by the Israeli justice ministry yesterday
• Under the terms of the ceasefire's first phase, aid is meant to surge into Gaza - but Unicef reports this morning that has not yet happened and they have hundreds of trucks waiting to go in
• Thousands of Palestinians are making difficult journeys from Gaza's south back to their homes - many of which are largely destroyed or no longer standing
• Elsewhere, Israeli strikes have hit southern Lebanon overnight, the IDF says. It says it hit "a Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure". Lebanese media report one person was killed and seven others injured

Image source, Reuters

Next steps of Gaza ceasefire deal hinges on Trump's involvementpublished at 09:16 BST 11 October

09:16 BST 11 October

Hugo Bachega
Middle East correspondent, reporting from Jerusalem

Image source, Getty Images

As they walk along dusty roads amid the wreckage of buildings, many in silence, there is shock and sadness: the scale of the destruction is difficult to comprehend. Displaced multiple times by the war, Palestinians are returning home, leaving behind their makeshift tents, but some are finding out there is nothing to go back to.

Families are searching the rubble for anything that can remind them of their old lives. The Gaza they knew is gone; and no-one seems to know what the Gaza of the future will be.

Medical teams, meanwhile, are already retrieving bodies under flattened buildings: more than 100 have already been found, with thousands more expected to be waiting to be recovered.

The ceasefire deal, achieved largely because of Trump’s personal involvement, is the first phase – probably the easiest – of the US president's 20-point plan for Gaza. But what happens next, after the Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners are freed, is still not clear. The agreement was reached with extraordinary speed.

Its language is vague - which I explained a bit earlier - but there is no indication of the next steps. Many sticking points remain, including questions over the future of Hamas, the scale of the Israeli withdrawal and who is going to govern Gaza.

The negotiations are now expected to be more difficult, and both Israel and Hamas have reasons to try to stall the talks. There is momentum, but progress will only be possible if the president remains engaged with the process.