The Latest: Palestinians journey back home as aid convoys enter Gaza and truce holds

A ceasefire in the war in Gaza was holding for the third day on Sunday as aid agencies worked to rush in more desperately needed aid to the besieged territory under the truce deal. Preparations were also underway for the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza and Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

U.N. officials said that real progress was being made Sunday with the aid being allowed into Gaza

Eri Kaneko, a spokesperson for the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said supplies of cooking gas had entered Gaza for the first time since March. Other aid moving through include flour, fruit and meat.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who pushed to clinch the ceasefire deal, is expected to arrive in Israel Monday morning. He will meet with families of hostages and speak at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, according to a schedule released by the White House.

Trump will then continue on to Egypt, where the office of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has said he will co-chair a “peace summit” on Monday with attendance by regional and international leaders.

Gaza's Hamas-run Interior Ministry has deployed thousands of police in areas the Israeli military withdrew from after the ceasefire took effect.

Here’s the latest:

A Palestinian official says Hamas has a delegation in Cairo that is currently holding talks with mediators to modify the lists of Palestinian prisoners who are to be released.

The official added Sunday evening that despite the Israeli rejection, mediators are still working for a final solution regarding the names, adding that Hamas wants Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Saadat as well as several others serving life sentences to be released.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media about the talks, said Hamas wants Israel to abide by the list that “we agreed on last Thursday.”

There was no immediate comment from Israel.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will participate in the summit in Egypt on Monday, according to a Palestinian official and Egypt's official news agency

The Sharm el-Sheikh Peace Summit will be attended by the King of Jordan, the Emir of Qatar, the Prime Minister of Kuwait, the King of Bahrain, and the President of Palestine. It will also be attended by the presidents of Turkey, Indonesia, Azerbaijan, France, and Cyprus, the German Chancellor, the prime ministers of the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Greece, Armenia, Hungary, Pakistan, Canada, Norway, and Iraq, and the Vice President of the United Arab Emirates.

Also expected to take part is the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Sultanate of Oman, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, the President of the European Council, the Minister of State for External Affairs of India, and the Ambassador of Japan to Cairo.

Iran's state-run IRNA news agency says the country’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told a Cabinet meeting on Sunday that Egypt had formally invited Iran’s president to attend the gathering of world leaders in the Arab country on Monday.

Araghchi said the Islamic Republic declined the invitation, which Egypt then renewed. It wasn't immediately clear if Iran, an ally of Hamas, responded to that second invitation.

Israel has warned Palestinians in the occupied West Bank against celebrating after prisoners are released on Monday, according to a prisoner’s family and a Palestinian official familiar with the plans.

In neighborhoods where prisoners’ families live, Israeli forces distributed fliers warning that “anyone who participates in such activities exposes himself to punishment and arrest,” the official said. The Associated Press reviewed a copy of the flier.

Families have also told Palestinian Authority officials that Israeli security personally warned them not to hold celebrations, the official and members of one of the families said. They spoke anonymously because of not being authorized to discuss the matter.

Israel’s military didn’t immediately respond to questions about the warnings.

—By Sam Metz and Jalal Bwaitel in Ramallah, West Bank;

The United Nations humanitarian chief said that the United States and Egypt will co-chair at a Red Sea resort on Monday shows the international community's commitment to the implementation of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.

“There are so many things that could go wrong in the coming days and weeks,” Tom Fletcher told The Associated Press in Cairo. “But all of us working on this want to get the hostages home and want to get masses and masses of aid ... into Gaza to save as many lives as possible.”

Fletcher said trucks of aid have begun going into Gaza on Sunday, including cooking gas for the first time in months but not yet at the scale they hope for in the days and weeks ahead.

“Much of Gaza is a wasteland,” he added. “We are looking to the world to respond with real generosity. We will deliver outside of that plan, but we need the funding, and we need the access. And of course, we need this peace agreement, this ceasefire, to hold.”

U.N. officials said real progress was being made Sunday with the aid being allowed into Gaza

Eri Kaneko, a spokesperson for the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said cooking gas supplies have entered Gaza for the first time since March. Other aid moving through include flour, fruit and meat.

She added that officials were also given additional access to move in medical equipment and help move Palestinians from flood-prone areas to safer locations ahead of the winter.

Alana Zeitchik, a relative of Israeli hostage David Cunio, said she is “nervous” about the condition he will be in when he is freed from captivity.

Cunio’s wife, Sharon Aloni Cunio, and his twin daughters were held captive by Hamas and released in November 2023.

Zeitchik said Cunio’s wife received guidance on how to tell her daughters that their father is coming home and that they were “in shock” after hearing the news.

Zeitchik told The Associated Press: “We won’t really be able to exhale and have a sigh of relief until he is back on Israeli soil.”

Germany wants to provide rapid support for the reconstruction of Gaza in the event of a lasting peace agreement, Development Minister Reem Alabali Radovan said.

“Germany is ready to assist with the reconstruction,” Alabali Radovan told the Handelsblatt newspaper on Sunday.

She said Germany wants to initially help with mobile temporary housing and was in favor of bringing in the private sector for the reconstruction.

“It won’t work without private capital. The reconstruction of Gaza, Syria, or Ukraine requires sums of money that we could never raise from public budgets alone,” she said.

An unauthorized pro-Palestinian protest in the Swiss capital of Bern descended into violent clashes between demonstrators and police, leaving 18 police officers and an unknown number of protesters injured, Swiss public broadcaster SRF said.

Police also said that at least 57 buildings and nine police vehicles were damaged in the clashes on Saturday afternoon, and five people were temporarily detained, SRF reported.

The police used water cannons to keep thousands of protesters away from the city’s parliament building and the train station. The demonstrators were rallying against Israel’s actions in Gaza and what they claim as the Swiss government’s lack of support for the Palestinian people.

The largest humanitarian actor in Gaza, UNRWA, which has the equivalent of 6,000 trucks of aid waiting outside in Egypt and Jordan, said it had no clarity on its role in the new scaling up of relief provided to Gaza.

Spokesperson Jonathan Fowler said the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees is “standing ready” to contribute and has enough food supplies in its warehouses for the entire population of the Gaza Strip for three months.

As Trump prepares to travel to the Middle East, his vice president said he believes “we are on the cusp of peace in Gaza for the first time – not just in a couple of years, but really in a very long time.”

Trump has been able to “unite the Israelis with the Gulf Arab states for a common objective, and that is to bring the hostages home, to stop the war and to build the kind of long time settlement that we really do believe can lead to a lasting peace,” JD Vance told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

He said about 200 troops from U.S. Central Command are already in the region to monitor the terms of the ceasefire and help ensure the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

“It's not going to be necessary for American troops to be in Gaza,” Vance said.

In a separate interview, Vance said Trump also was likely to meet with the newly freed hostages.

“Knock on wood, but we feel very confident the hostages will be released and this president is actually traveling to the Middle East, likely this evening, in order to meet them and greet them in person,” Vance told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Associated Press footage showed dozens of trucks crossing the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing with the Gaza Strip. The Egyptian Red Crescent said they carried medical supplies, tents, blankets, food and fuel.

The trucks will head to the inspection area in the Kerem Shalom crossing for screening by Israeli troops.

Abeer Etifa, a spokeswoman for the World Food Program, said workers were clearing roads inside Gaza Sunday to facilitate delivery.

The Israeli defense body in charge of humanitarian aid in Gaza, COGAT, said that the amount of aid entering the Gaza Strip is expected to increase Sunday to around 600 trucks per day, as stipulated in the agreement.

Egypt said it is sending 400 aid trucks into Gaza Sunday. The trucks will have to be inspected by Israeli forces before being allowed in.

A message sent Saturday from Gal Hirsch, Israel’s coordinator for the hostages and the missing and obtained by the AP, told hostage families to prepare for the release of their loved ones starting Monday morning. One of the families of the hostages confirmed the note’s authenticity.

Hirsch said preparations in hospitals and in Rei’im camp were complete to receive the live hostages, while the dead will be transferred to the Institute of Forensic Medicine for identification.

Israeli officials believe about 20 of the hostages out of 48 held by Hamas and other Palestinian factions in Gaza are still alive. All of the living hostages are expected to be released Monday.