In a rare move hours after the cease-fire took effect, one senior Hamas official said the group wants to engage the new Trump administration.

Throughout the war, the Israeli military had barred Palestinians from returning to the north by severing Gaza along the Netzarim corridor, a belt that runs east to west across the strip where troops cleared out the Palestinian population and set up bases.

Israel says it has killed thousands of the armed group’s members and destroyed much of its infrastructure, but since the cease-fire started Hamas has shown it still holds power in the enclave.

For the Islamist militant group, armed struggle now looks like a dead end. Its future in Gaza depends on the civilian politburo.

President Biden released a statement following the Israel-Hamas ceasefire announcement Wednesday, saying release of American hostages will be included in the agreement.

A cease-fire announced Wednesday will end the 15-month war between Hamas and Israel and includes the eventual release of all hostages held by Hams and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Hamas gunmen are guarding aid convoys in Gaza, and its police patrol city streets, sending a clear message: Hamas remains in charge.

Israel has been caught in an impossible dilemma: how to choose or balance between the immediate fate of the hostages and the long-term national security concerns of Israel and its people.

Hamas named on Friday four Israeli "women soldiers" held hostage since October 7 whom it plans to release from captivity in a second exchange under a ceasefire deal that has halted the Gaza war.Israel confirmed it had received the list of names.

U.S. military C-17 aircraft began flying out migrants on orders from President Donald Trump on Friday, as the Pentagon prepared to send even more troops to southern border, including from the Army's elite 82nd Airborne division.

A senior Hamas official told AFP that his group will provide on Friday the names of four Israeli women hostages to be freed the following day in the second exchange of a ceasefire agreement. The exchange is part of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza war,