• Israeli troops withdrew from the Netzarim Corridor in Gaza, allowing free passage for vehicles.
• Negotiations are set to begin on the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire.
• Israel and Hamas completed a hostage-prisoner exchange, with three Israeli hostages and 183 Palestinian prisoners released.

A Hamas official said Israeli troops completed their withdrawal on Sunday from a strategic road cutting through the Gaza Strip, part of a fragile truce deal that Israel said it was implementing.

But diplomatic tensions were high after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to suggest in an interview that a Palestinian state could be established on Saudi territory, drawing the ire of Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations.

As negotiations are set to begin on the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire, which is intended to pave the way for a permanent end to the war, Palestinians on Sunday were able to cross the Netzarim Corridor, where an Israeli checkpoint used to stand.

An official from the Hamas-run interior ministry said, “Israeli forces have dismantled their positions ... and completely withdrawn their tanks from the Netzarim Corridor on Salaheddin Rd, allowing vehicles to pass freely in both directions.”

Displaced Palestinians inspect piles of clothes as they cross the Netzarim Corridor. Photo / Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP

AFP journalists saw no troops in the area as cars, buses, pickup trucks and donkey carts travelled both north and south along the road.

Gaza resident Mahmoud al-Sarhi said that “arriving at the Netzarim Corridor meant death until this morning”.

This is “the first time I saw our destroyed house”, he told AFP of his home in the nearby Zeitun area.

“The entire area is in ruins. I cannot live here.”

A senior Hamas official said Israel’s withdrawal from Netzarim had been scheduled for Sunday under the terms of the truce that took effect on January 19.

Asked about Sunday’s withdrawal, an Israeli security official told AFP on condition of anonymity: “We are preparing to implement the ceasefire agreement according to the guidelines of the political echelon.”

This came as Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli forces shot dead three civilians in Gaza City north of Netzarim Sunday, with the military saying it fired “warning shots” and hit Palestinians who had approached troops.

The Gaza war began with Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, and the ceasefire agreed ahead of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration has largely halted the fighting.

The 2023 attack, the deadliest in Israeli history, resulted in the deaths of 1210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Militants also took 251 hostages, of whom 73 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said the war has killed at least 48,181 people in the territory.

Under the current ceasefire, Israel and Hamas on Saturday completed their fifth hostage-prisoner exchange, with three Israeli hostages and 183 Palestinian prisoners released.

Netanyahu denounced Hamas as “monsters” after the handover of the three captives, who appeared emaciated and were forced to speak on a stage flanked by Hamas gunmen.

The hospital treating former hostages Or Levy and Eli Sharabi said they were in a “poor medical condition”, while Ohad Ben Ami was in a “severe nutritional state”.

Of the prisoners freed from Israeli jails, the Palestinian Prisoners' Club advocacy group said seven required hospitalisation, decrying “brutality” and mistreatment in jail.

Halfway around the world in Bangkok on Sunday, five Thai farm workers held hostage by Hamas and freed in an earlier swap wept with joy as they returned home.

“You are back, I thought you were dead,” the grandfather of 33-year-old Watchara Sriaoun told him.

On Saturday, Netanyahu ordered negotiators to return to Qatar, which helped mediate the truce, “to discuss technical details of the agreement”, his office said.

It added that on his return to Israel from the United States where he met Trump, Netanyahu will “hold a security cabinet meeting regarding negotiations for the second phase of the hostage release deal”.

Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim on Saturday warned that Israel’s “lack of commitment in implementing the first phase ... exposes this agreement to danger and thus it may stop or collapse”.

Trump sparked global outrage by suggesting on Tuesday the United States should take control of the Gaza Strip and clear out its inhabitants.

Israel’s Defence Minister later ordered the army to prepare for “voluntary” departures from Gaza.

Trump has ruled out sending in American troops, and in an interview with Fox News aired Saturday, Netanyahu said Israel was willing to “do the job”.

With the region already on edge over Trump’s proposed displacement of Palestinians, Netanyahu sparked fury when he said in a television interview that a Palestinian state – which he has long opposed – could be “in Saudi Arabia”.

The Saudi foreign ministry stressed its “categorical rejection to such statements”, while Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit said such ideas “are nothing more than mere fantasies or illusions”.

Egypt will host an Arab summit on February 27 to discuss “the latest serious developments” concerning the Palestinian territories, its foreign ministry said Sunday.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty was heading to Washington for talks, and Jordan’s King Abdullah II was due to meet Trump at the White House on February 11.

- Agence France-Presse