Israel says ceasefire in effect as troops withdraw from parts of Gaza

Palestinians shared sweets, offered prayers and shouted takbir – Islamic declarations of faith – in Tal al-Hawa, Gaza City, on Friday, as they awoke to the prospect of a permanent end to Israeli hostilities.

Raghad Izzat Hamouda, a 20-year-old woman displaced in the neighborhood, recalled “an indescribable feeling,” after Israel and Hamas agreed the first phrase of a ceasefire deal on Wednesday.

But for others, feelings of euphoria were transient. Now, they are gripped by the anxiety of how they will rebuild their lives – following nearly 740 days of bombing and siege.

More than 90% of housing units in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, the UN reported on October 7. Just on Friday, at least 132 bodies of Palestinians were recovered from the rubble, according to hospital officials there.

Jamal Al Rozzi, a Palestinian aid worker in his 50s, told CNN he fears people will struggle “when they wake up and they start to look at their lives, what they lost, what they don’t have.”

“The shock will start,” said Al Rozzi, who fled the Gaza Strip to the Egyptian capital of Cairo in April of 2024.

“Your children did not go to school for two years. You have just lost somebody from the family… You have no home, you have no work, no income,” he said Thursday. “The suffering could go on for years.”

Israeli security officials told CNN that 600 aid trucks will be allowed into Gaza every day as part of the ceasefire agreement’s humanitarian clause.

The trucks will come from “the UN-approved international organizations, the private sector, and donor countries,” according to the officials.

The supplies will include cooking gas, food, medical supplies, shelter supplies and more, they added.

In addition, equipment “for the repair of critical infrastructure such as water lines, sewage systems, and bakeries,” will also be allowed in, the officials said, though crucially they were unable to say when the increase in deliveries would begin.

UN aid teams say they are ready to bring thousands of tons of supplies into Gaza but two UN officials in the region - from UNICEF and OCHA - told CNN on Friday the expected surge in aid deliveries following the Israeli government’s approval of the ceasefire plan had not yet materialized.

The Israeli security officials also said that Palestinians will be able to leave and enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing, with the border of Egypt.

Exiting Gaza through the Rafah crossing will follow “Israeli security approval” and will be under the supervision of a European Union mission, they said. The mechanism will be “similar to the January 2025 mechanism,” they said, referring to the exit pathway Palestinians took in coordination with the UN and international organizations at the time.

The ability for Palestinians to re-enter Gaza again is a new development. People who want to return to their homes in the enclave will be “subject to Israeli approval and to a specific mechanism that will be coordinated later with the Egyptian side,” the officials said.

Some context: A UN-backed initiative said that Israel’s war in Gaza has pushed parts of the enclave into a “man-made famine.”

Israel disputes this and said the report was biased.

Humanitarian workers told CNN last year that COGAT - the Israeli body responsible for determining what is allowed into Gaza from Israel - arbitrarily prevented essential items such as maternity kits, crutches, sanitary pads and water filtration systems from entering the Strip.

COGAT denied the claims.

Under the terms of the ceasefire resolution, the 72-hour period for the release of hostages held by Hamas began early this morning.

Forty-seven hostages remain in Gaza, with at least 20 believed to be alive. The remains of another hostage, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier Hadar Goldin, have been held there since 2014, when he was killed and his body taken to the strip.

A list of the hostages who remain in Gaza, including those who are presumed dead.

A ceasefire period has begun in Gaza with Israeli troops moving to new lines in the enclave. Information is also emerging about the release of hostages ahead of the Monday deadline.

Here’s the latest:

A Doctors Without Borders (MSF) emergency coordinator based in central Gaza told CNN that the psychological consequences facing the population, particularly the children, is as consequential and worthy of humanitarian attention as the physical destruction in the enclave.

Jacob Granger reported a permeating sense of “despair about what Gaza has become” amid cautious optimism regarding the ceasefire. He also pointed to significant behavioral changes among some of Gaza’s children as a result of a lack of shelter and schooling, characterizing it as “abnormal” and “very aggressive” in relation to their young age.

The MSF emergency coordinator stressed the importance of maintaining a long-term ceasefire to allow for an unimpeded entry of aid.

US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff appeared to wear a yarmulke printed with the famous “Fight” image of US President Donald Trump while praying at the Western Wall today.

Witkoff wore the yarmulke while visiting the wall in Jerusalem, photos from the Western Wall Heritage Foundation show. The wall is functionally the holiest site in Judaism, and visiting politicians and dignitaries often stop there to pray.

The photograph of a bloodied Trump with his fist raised, taken by Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci, quickly became a totem among Trump supporters after the president narrowly escaped death in July 2024. A painting of the photograph even hangs in the foyer of the White House.

The picture has been printed on t-shirts, posters and, evidently, yarmulkes. An Etsy listing appears to match the one worn by Witkoff, with the word “FIGHT” printed in large, sans serif type above Trump’s face.

Special Envoy Steve Witkoff holds up a yarmulke with the image of President Trump while speaking during the grand opening of The Altneu synagogue in New York in January.

Witkoff has been pictured with a similar yarmulke before. A photo from January 2025 at a Manhattan synagogue shows the envoy brandishing one with a smaller, painted image of Trump.

US forces have begun arriving in Israel as part of an effort to establish a civil-military coordination center amid the ceasefire in Gaza, a US official said.

CNN reported Thursday that up to 200 US troops were going to be on the ground in Israel to monitor the Gaza plan’s implementation, though no US forces will be in Gaza. That full group of roughly 200 service members are expected to be in place by Sunday, the US official said.

Some of the 200 personnel are coming from the Middle East having already been overseas, while others are coming from commands in the US, the official said. They are still scoping out sites to determine where the coordination center will be, they added, emphasizing that the effort is in the very early stages and will take time to establish.

“It’s going to take some days — weeks — to full get this set up,” the official said. “This won’t happen overnight.”

The troops will be focused on assisting with the flow of humanitarian and logistical aid, as well as security assistance, into Gaza, the official said. The US service members will also be monitoring “the efforts towards achieving civilian governance in Gaza,” the official added.

The coordination center will be used by a multitude of international partners, including other countries, NGOs and private sector partners.

“It’s for everyone to meet, collaborate, and coordinate so you don’t have a bunch of people flooding in trying to do right, but it’s chaos and they actually do more harm because they’re not working in the same direction and they’re not coordinating,” the official said.

President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House on Friday.

President Donald Trump is expected to convene world leaders for a summit in Egypt next week during his visit to the country, two Trump administration officials familiar with the event told CNN.

The officials said that a number of European and Arab leaders are planning to attend. Trump and his team worked on the list of attendees in conjunction with the Egyptians who are organizing the event, one of the officials said.

So far leaders from France, Germany, and Italy are expected to attend, as well as leaders from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

It was not immediately clear if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be in attendance.

On Monday afternoon, the president is expected to participate in a signing ceremony for the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, as well as the leaders of Qatar and Turkey, are expected to participate.

Axios was first to report on the summit.

We’re learning more about the 250 Palestinians serving life sentences in Israeli prisons who are set to be released under the ceasefire agreement.
They have a range of affiliations.

Here’s a closer look:

The list states that 142 of the prisoners will be deported. The rest will return either to the occupied West Bank or East Jerusalem.

Fifteen hold Israeli citizenship.

This post has been updated.

Yousef al-Bayouk prays during the funeral for his brothers, Moath and Moataz, who were killed in an Israeli strike, in Khan Younis in May.

UNICEF’s James Elder said trauma weighs heavily on Palestinian children, and education is fundamentally critical in the effort to rebuild Gaza.

The United Nations Children’s Fund spokesperson, who has been to Gaza several times since 2023, said driving through the enclave yesterday was heartening, as children were joyous and wearing “wall-to-wall smiles.” But he said the impact of war will likely be visible for many years to come.

Speaking of the famine experienced in Gaza, Elder said that “malnourished children end up, quite frequently, being stunted. That has a cognitive decline.”

The spokesperson said that the immune systems of the children have been severely compromised, describing the youngsters as “shattered.” He added that a third of all births in the first half of this year were to malnourished babies, or babies who went straight into incubators.

A girl cries as she stands above debris near a house that was hit during Israeli strikes in Khan Younis in April.

“The level of trauma, which is unprecedented, we can’t even start to treat the post-traumatic stress disorder in children because it’s being intersected — there is no ‘post’ yet, it’s day-to-day trauma — that has to start with the classroom,” Elder said.

While missed education is bound to affect each child, Elder stressed that the role education can play in the restoration of Gaza is crucial in elevating the quality of life for the entire population. He said, “If Gaza is to rebuild, if Palestinians are to take agency again, education is that bedrock.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at Sheba Medical Center at Tel HaShomer on Friday to review the healthcare system’s preparations for receiving the hostages as part of Operation Returning Home.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has visited a medical center preparing for the arrival of the hostages set to be released from Gaza in the coming days, his office said today.

Netanyahu visited the Sheba Medical Center at Tel HaShomer in the outskirts of Tel Aviv as part of “Operation Returning Home,” the Prime Minister’s Office said.

While there, Netanyahu met with Israeli soldiers who were wounded in the war in Gaza, calling them “heroes” and saying that he has “boundless appreciation” for them.

Displaced Palestinians make their way along a road as they return to northern Gaza on Friday.

The first phase of the deal between Israel and Hamas is in effect as the two move forward cautiously amid mutual distrust.

Video shows thousands of Palestinians moving on foot from the south of Gaza toward Gaza City along a coastal road. Last month, the Israel Defense Forces ordered the evacuation of Gaza City, which was estimated then to have a population of about 1 million people.

Here’s everything you need to know:

Displaced Palestinians wave to the camera as they walk along a coastal road in the direction of Gaza City on Friday.

A program coordinator for INARA (International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance) who is living in a tent in Gaza with her children has spoken of the fatigue felt by people in the enclave — and their hope for a better future.

Yousra Abu Sharekh told CNN’s Becky Anderson that the most recent period of the war has been the hardest on Palestinians.

Yousra Abu Sharekh speaks to CNN on Friday.

Sharekh said the first phase in the framework agreed upon by Israel and Hamas marks a long-awaited end to the ongoing bombardment of Gaza, but not an end to the suffering of civilians.

“It’s an ending for the bleeding, but it’s just the start for Palestinians who lost their beloved ones, their houses, their normality,” she said.

The aid worker also said that “families are in need of everything,” adding that many have lived for months without shelter.

“We hope we will have the environment to enable us to achieve sustainable and more impactful result on the mental health and social support,” she added.

CNN’s Salma Abdelaziz outlines what’s already happened in Gaza after the ceasefire came into effect at noon local time, and what questions remain as many Palestinians start the trek back to their homes.

Bipin Joshi is seen in Hamas captivity in this video believed to have been filmed in November 2023.

The family of Bipin Joshi, a Nepali student who was kidnapped during Hamas’ October 7 attacks, is in a “unbearable state of uncertainty regarding his fate,” they said in a statement today.

Joshi is one of two hostages held in Gaza that authorities have said they do not know the status of. Of the 48 hostages, 20 people are presumed alive, while 26 are presumed dead.

Earlier today, however, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referenced “20 living hostages and 28 dead hostages.”

Joshi’s family said in their statement that “these are tense and complex days for all of us; days of tremendous joy, anxiety, anticipation and sadness.”

“We feel surrounded by love and support, yet we kindly ask that the family’s privacy and our wish to wait for news in silence be respected,” they said. “Thank you for your open hearts, please pray with us for good news.”

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands at a joint press conference at the White House on September 29.

The Office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said US President Donald Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize after the Norwegian Nobel Committee gave the award to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.

“The Nobel Committee talks about peace. President @realDonaldTrump makes it happen.
The facts speak for themselves. President #Trump deserves it,” Netanyahu’s office said on X.

In July, Netanyahu presented Trump with a nomination for the prize at a White House dinner. Pakistan had also nominated the president in June, citing his “decisive diplomatic intervention” following a spike in violence between India and Pakistan this year.

Machado, a Venezuelan opposition leader, received the accolade for promoting democratic rights in Venezuela and “for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said today, announcing the award at a ceremony in Oslo.

She dedicated her prize “to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!”

Although the White House criticized the committee for snubbing Trump for this year’s peace prize, the US president — who has long coveted the award — praised Machado in January for “peacefully expressing the voices and the WILL of the Venezuelan people.”

CNN’s Christian Edwards contributed reporting.

This post has been updated with reaction from Machado.

The father of an American citizen taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, 2023, has spoken of the anticipation and uncertainty that continues to shroud his family while they wait for news on his son.

Ruby Chen told CNN’s Kate Bolduan he holds on to the hope his son, Itay, is still alive but fears for the worst.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier publicly implied for the first time that not all the deceased hostages held captive in Gaza will return. CNN previously reported that the Israeli government has, for months, been aware that Hamas may not know the location of, or is unable to retrieve, the remains of some of the deceased hostages.

More than two years after Hamas and its allies kidnapped 251 people from Israel and took them to Gaza, 47 hostages remain in the enclave, with at least 20 believed to be alive. The remains of another hostage, Israeli soldier Hadar Goldin, have been held there since 2014.

Ruby Chen speaks with CNN on Friday.

“There is that scenario, some say even a realistic scenario, that Hamas will come back and say, ‘Look, we don’t have 48. We only have a lower number.’ So it might be that there are some families, including mine, that do not have closure,” he said.

Itay, a dual US-Israeli citizen, is presumed dead, but his father has previously said that his son remains a hostage even in death. This, he said, is what he has expressed to US President Donald Trump as well as former President Joe Biden during his administration.

“I would hope to believe that this administration, that speaks so highly about America … will do their best efforts as well … making sure that my son is one of the first that come out,” he added.

Israeli troops gather at a position along the Israel-Gaza border on Friday.

The Israeli military is “well prepared to go back into combat” and fight Hamas if the militant group retains control of Gaza after the end of the war there, according to Effie Defrin, an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson.

The Hamas of today “isn’t (the) Hamas of two years ago,” Defrin said, adding that “Hamas has been defeated everywhere we fought it,” both “military and government-wise.”

The 20-point ceasefire plan agreed upon by Israel and Hamas outlines that a transitional government should rule Gaza until the Palestinian Authority completes its “reform program” and “can securely and effectively take back control of Gaza.”

If Hamas were somehow able to gain control of Gaza despite this part of the proposal, the Israeli military would have to take action, Defrin said.

“If this is achieved through negotiations, that would suffice. If not, we shall know how to go back and fight it whenever necessary,” he said.

The IDF is “well prepared to go back into combat, fight Hamas and defeat its government capabilities. They won’t go back to controlling the Gaza Strip,” he stressed.

Israel’s justice ministry has published the full list of 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences who are due to be released as part of the hostages-ceasefire agreement.

More than half of the prisoners will be deported to third countries, while 100 will be released to the occupied West Bank.

Here who is — and isn’t — included:

CNN’s Abeer Salman contributed to this report.

Palestinians walk through a damaged neighborhood in Gaza City on Friday.

The bodies of at least 33 Palestinians have been recovered from Gaza City today, Al-Shifa Hospital Director Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya told CNN, after the Israeli military withdrew from some areas of the city.

Some of the bodies were unable to be immediately identified, so they were sent to Al-Shifa as it is the only hospital in Gaza with a forensic medicine department, Salmiya said.