Steven Witkoff, who played an important role in brokering the truce between Israel and Hamas, also met with Israel’s prime minister and visited Saudi Arabia.

Even before the first phase is completed, the fragile cease-fire agreement that has paused 15 months of war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas faces increasingly long odds of lasting or even reaching phase two.

President Donald Trump indicated Saturday that he had spoken with the king of Jordan about potentially building housing and moving more than 1 million Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries,

The release was delayed by a chaotic scene in which a crowd of Palestinians surrounded and jeered at hostages as they were turned over to the Red Cross.

A small U.S. security firm is hiring about 100 U.S. Special Forces veterans to help guard a Gaza crossing during a truce between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, according to a company spokesman and a hiring email seen by Reuters.

A professional fact-checker has debunked claims from the Trump administration accusing the Biden administration of spending $50 million to send condoms to Gaza.

• Eight hostages – three Israeli and five Thai – are set to be released from Gaza on Thursday. The three Israelis are Arbel Yehoud, Agam Berger and Gadi Moses, according to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office. The names of the five Thai citizens have not been made public.

The truce is aimed at winding down the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and Hamas, whose Oct. 7, 2023, attack into Israel sparked the fighting.

Hamas is set to free three more Israeli hostages as well as five Thai captives, and Israel is to release another 110 Palestinian prisoners, in the third such exchange since a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip took hold earlier this month.

Long lines of Palestinians -- some kneeling to kiss the soil as they stepped into the northern part of the strip -- were making their way home on Monday.

BEER YAAKOV, Israel (AP) — When the mother of one of the Thai hostages held in the Gaza Strip for over a year caught sight of her son on a Facebook livestream after his release Thursday, he had changed so much that she didn’t recognize him at first.