New details and growing shock over emaciated hostages have renewed pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to extend a fragile Gaza ceasefire beyond the first phase, even as U.S. President Donald Trump repeated his pledge that the U.S. would take control of the Palestinian enclave.

Talks on the second phase, meant to see more hostages released and a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, were due to start Feb. 3. But Israel and Hamas appear to have made little progress, even as Israeli forces withdrew Sunday from a Gaza corridor in the latest commitment to the truce.

U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to take over Gaza will imperil attempts to forge landmark ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel and fuel anti-American sentiment in the oil-rich kingdom, analysts said.

Trump's proposal to redevelop Gaza and oust the more than two million Palestinians living in the territory prompted a global backlash and enraged the Arab world, making it difficult for the Saudis to consider normalisation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hailed U.S. President Donald Trump's widely criticized plan to move Palestinians out of the war-battered Gaza Strip, saying Israel is willing to "do the job".

Israeli forces began withdrawing from a key Gaza corridor on Sunday, Israeli officials said, part of Israel's commitments under a tenuous ceasefire deal with Hamas that is moving ahead but faces a major test over whether the sides can negotiate its planned extension.

Israel agreed as part of the truce to remove its forces from the 4-mile (6-kilometer) Netzarim corridor, a strip of land that bisects northern Gaza from the south that Israel used as a military zone during the war.

U.S. President Donald Trump says his suggestions that Gaza’s residents could be resettled and the area redeveloped for tourism potential has “been very well received” around the globe.

The idea has actually been roundly criticized. But Trump insisted Friday that it was a simple “real estate transaction,” and that the U.S. is in “no rush to do anything.”

Hamas on Saturday paraded three Israeli hostages before a crowd of hundreds in the Gaza Strip ahead of handing them over to the Red Cross. The three male civilians were freed in exchange for dozens of Palestinian captives held by Israel as part of a ceasefire in Gaza that has paused the war in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli captives were led up onto a stage and a masked Hamas fighter held a microphone as each was made to give a statement before the crowd. Captives did not speak during previous releases.

Dozens of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have protested President Donald Trump’s proposal to relocate most of the territory’s population.

Thursday’s protest outside a hospital in central Gaza was organized by a breakaway faction of the secular Fatah movement that is led by Mohammed Dahlan, who is closely allied with the United Arab Emirates.

President Donald Trump said “no soldiers by the U.S. would be needed” to carry out his proposal for the United States to take over the Gaza Strip and redevelop the war-torn territory.

“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. He added that Palestinians would be “resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region.”

Gaza has long been a powder keg, and it exploded after Hamas fighters stormed southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing and abducting people, which sparked a crushing Israeli military operation that's only recently stopped under a tenuous ceasefire.

U.S. President Donald Trump's suggestion Tuesday that displaced Palestinians in Gaza be permanently resettled outside the war-torn territory and the U.S. take "ownership" of the land is triggering new tensions over the future of the enclave.

Israel said on Thursday it has begun preparations for the departure of large numbers of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip in line with President Donald Trump's plan for the territory. Officials meanwhile said Egypt has launched an diplomatic blitz behind the scenes to try and head off the plan.

The Palestinians and much of the international community have rejected Trump's proposal, fearing Israel will never allow the refugees to return and that it would destabilize the region. Egypt has warned that such a plan could undermine its peace treaty with Israel, a cornerstone of stability and American influence in the Middle East for decades.