Israel says nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners freed

A statement by the prison service says 1,968 Palestinians “were transferred from several prisons across the country” earlier in the day as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal.

They were released “from the Ofer prison to [the occupied West Bank] and East Jerusalem, and from the Ktziot prison to Kerem Shalom [Karem Abu Salem],” it added, referring to one of the crossings into the Gaza Strip.

Trump says Gaza must be ‘demilitarised’

Continuing his remarks at the Egypt summit, Trump said mediators’ shared commitment to the 20-point peace plan he outlined for Gaza will be the “crucial foundation” for a “great, glorious and lasting peace”.

Efforts are already under way to agree on how to implement the later stages of the plan, which calls for Israel to withdraw from Gaza in stages and for Hamas to hand over its weapons.

Trump said the focus in Gaza must now be on “restoring the basics of a good life” through massive reconstruction, which “a lot of money” has been committed towards.

But, he said, “Gaza’s reconstruction also requires that it be demilitarised and that a new, honest police force … be allowed to create a safe condition for the people” there.

Israel must also be demilitarised.

Hamas gunmen patrol Gaza amid power vacuum fears

Hamas has gradually sent its men back into the streets of Gaza since the ceasefire began on Friday. US President Donald Trump has suggested Hamas has been given a temporary green light to police war-devastated Gaza.

“They do want to stop the problems, and they’ve been open about it, and we gave them approval for a period of time,” he said, responding to a journalist’s question about reports that Hamas is battling criminal gangs and instituting itself as a police force.

After the ceasefire took effect, Ismail al-Thawabta, head of Hamas’s Gaza government media office, said the group would not allow a security vacuum and will maintain public safety and property.

Hamas has ruled out any discussion of its arsenal, saying it would be ready to surrender its arms to a future Palestinian state.

Trump’s plan foresees Hamas out of power in a demilitarised Gaza run by a Palestinian committee under international supervision. It calls for the deployment of an international stabilisation mission that will train and support a Palestinian police force.

UN says more aid getting into starving Gaza

A United Nations official says life-saving assistance is being funneled into war-ravaged Gaza under the initial 60-day ceasefire phase.

Israel has cleared “our pipeline to 190,000 metric tonnes [of aid] as of yesterday”, said Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

“These supplies are across the region – in Jordan, Egypt, Israel, Cyprus and the West Bank – and are ready to move. Some was already on the way yesterday for the first time since March,” he added.

“More tents for displaced families, frozen meat, fresh fruit, flour and medicines also crossed into Gaza throughout the day in many areas. So our teams are reaching people in places that have been cut off for up to several months.”

_{A Palestinian girl sits by aid parcels after aid trucks entered from the Karem Abu Salem crossing}

‘A very dystopian reality right now for Palestinians’

Ines Abdel Razek, the co-director of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, says that this is the start of a very difficult period for the Palestinians, even though many are trying to portray the ceasefire as the end of the struggle.

“I think a lot of Palestinians have many mixed feelings today,” Razek told Al Jazeera from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

She said it is a moment of joy for the Palestinians since they are welcoming prisoners after decades of them being away , and people in Gaza celebrate the ceasefire after years of war.

“But I think we live in a very dystopian reality right now, where Israel is patting itself on the back and the world is celebrating war criminals,” Razek said.

“Israel and Netanyahu have blood on their hands,” she also said, stressing that Israel’s control of the Palestinian territories is not over even after the genocide carried out by Israel.

After Israel’s war halted, who is clashing with Hamas in Gaza?

Israeli air strikes on Gaza may have halted, and a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas is ongoing, but tucked behind the headlines, tensions are brewing in Gaza between Hamas and armed groups.

On Sunday, clashes erupted between an armed clan and Hamas security forces, killing at least 27 people, including eight members of Hamas, according to the Ministry of Interior in Gaza.

Caught in the crossfire was 28-year-old Palestinian journalist Saleh Aljafarawi, who was covering clashes in Gaza City’s Sabra neighbourhood between what security sources told Al Jazeera Arabic was an “armed militia” and Hamas.

But is this the only militia in Gaza? Who are these armed gangs? What are their goals? And are they affiliated with Israel?

Who fought Hamas on Sunday?

Media reports and sources said the clan that was fighting Hamas in Gaza City is the Doghmush clan. The large family has members in various factions across the political spectrum in Gaza.

Momtaz Doghmush was involved in the group Jaish al-Islam’s capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2008. Other clan members have been in Hamas or groups affiliated with the Palestinian Authority.

Some reports claimed the Doghmush who fought Hamas on Sunday were affiliated with Israel, but other sources from Gaza deny the affiliation with Israel.

The Sahem unit, an armed unit affiliated with the Interior Ministry, said the clashes started on Saturday when “an outlaw gang killed resistance fighters from the Qassam Brigades”, the armed wing of Hamas, near the Jordan Field Hospital in Gaza City.

Witnesses told the BBC that 300 Hamas fighters stormed a residential block where Doghmush gunmen were holed up, and a Palestinian security source told the Reuters news agency that Hamas launched a campaign in Gaza City that killed 32 members of “a gang”.

According to the Interior Ministry, eight Hamas members and 19 clan members were killed. Aljafarawi was also killed.

Are the Doghmush really backed by Israel?

That’s still unclear. There is conflicting information. Some reports from inside Gaza said the clan has an Israeli affiliation, but the group’s leaders have denied that.

In early October, Nizar Doghmush, head of the clan in Gaza City, told the Los Angeles Times he had been contacted by the Israeli military to manage a so-called humanitarian zone in Gaza City.

He told the newspaper he refused and added that the Israeli military then bombed his neighbourhood in Gaza City, invaded and systematically destroyed houses.

The Doghmush and Hamas have an animosity towards each other, which in the past has devolved into armed clashes. But Israel does have a history of funding and supporting groups in an effort to foment internal tensions.

Israel does support militias in Gaza

Israel is widely recognised to be behind the Popular Forces, a militia led by Yasser Abu Shabab of Gaza’s Tarabin Bedouin tribe. The Tarabin, however, have denounced Abu Shabab.

While Israel claimed Hamas was stealing aid from the people of Gaza, it was revealed that the Popular Forces was the one looting aid to resell to Gaza’s starving people. Hamas reportedly clashed with the Popular Forces on a few occasions since September 2024, accusing them of being Israeli collaborators.

Israel has also reportedly backed a group calling itself the Strike Force Against Terror, led by Hussam al-Astal, a member of the al-Majida clan. Al-Astal’s group also clashed with Hamas in early October before the ceasefire was announced, according to Israeli media.

Al-Astal is a former officer in the Palestinian Authority’s (PA’s) security forces but was accused by the PA and Hamas of collaborating with Israel in the 1990s. Israeli media reports said al-Astal was a member of Abu Shabab’s militia and continues to coordinate with the Popular Forces leader.

He reportedly controls a village called Qizan an-Najjar in the Khan Younis governorate in southern Gaza. The ongoing activity of these groups against Hamas and against civilians has contributed to a sense of unrest, as several people in Gaza have told Al Jazeera.

UK hosts talks on Gaza reconstruction

Dozens of top officials from Middle East and European nations have huddled with leading global financial institutions for talks in the United Kingdom on rebuilding the devastated Gaza Strip.

The aim of the three-day conference is to start the “crucial planning and coordination efforts for post-war Gaza” that would be Palestinian-led, the UK prime minister’s office said in a statement.

“We must be ready to act – to clear rubble, rebuild homes and set up infrastructure, restoring access to education and healthcare,” Middle East Minister Hamish Falconer said.

“We know the scale of the task. We know how urgent it is, and how complex it will be,” he added, highlighting that it “will take years and cost billions”.

The UK government said the talks brought together “representatives from businesses, civil society and governments to convene crucial planning and coordination efforts for post-war Gaza”.

The Palestinian Authority was represented along with officials from countries such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Germany and Italy.

I thought Trump wanted the Arabs to pay for reconstruction, why is UK handing out the contracts...

Egypt attendees believed to have objected to Netanyahu coming

Let’s talk about who didn’t attend the Gaza peace summit because that caused quite a kerfuffle earlier in the day.

Of course, we knew Hamas was not going to be attending. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not expected to attend the summit either.

But several hours ago it was reported he had been invited as well. Then it was reported the Israeli leader had agreed. But then it was reported in the Israeli press that Netanyahu’s office stated he would not attend because it is close to a religious holiday.

There’s been no official response about this, but there’s been a lot of speculation here that perhaps some of the attendees who were on their way to Sharm el-Sheikh objected privately to the Trump administration, and said maybe they wouldn’t show up if Netanyahu were to be there.

With Trump business deals come first. Netanyahu and Hamas excluded.

Egypt summit a ‘victory lap’ for Trump

This was very much seen as a victory lap for Donald Trump, a victory lap that all those who attended – those 20-plus world leaders – were willing for him to take because they want to ensure the US will still be engaged in this process going forward.

Everybody is aware, even though we are in the first phase of the ceasefire deal and even though there is a lot of momentum right now, that it is going to be difficult ensuring they are able to get to all the other phases of this ceasefire deal.

There are a lot of sticking points and a lot of details on the granular level that are really going to need to be dealt with in a serious manner.

So even though it was very positive today – all smiles and everybody here said this is a great step forward – they also want to make sure the US continues to press forward in its role to exert leverage over Israel to make sure it adheres to all of the points in this deal.

Justice demanded two years after deadly Israeli attack on journalists in Lebanon

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged Lebanon to pursue justice two years after an Israeli attack killed a Reuters journalist and wounded six others, including two from AFP news agency.

On Thursday, Lebanon’s government tasked the Ministry of Justice with investigating legal options for prosecuting Israel for crimes against journalists.

The government’s move “offers a fresh opportunity to achieve justice for the victims”, Human Rights Watch said in a statement, noting that two years since the attack, “victims of war crimes in Lebanon remain without effective access to accountability and justice”.

“Scores of other civilians in Lebanon have been killed in apparently deliberate or indiscriminate attacks that violate the laws of war and amount to war crimes,” HRW’s Ramzi Kaiss said.


_{AFP cameraman Dylan Collins after being wounded by Israeli shelling in 2023}

TRUMP PROTESTED IN ISRAEL; BEGS FOR BIBI PARDON; BRAGS ABOUT WAR CRIMES

Two years of genocide: Israel on trial for crimes against humanity in Gaza

Why You’ve Been Misled About “Israeli Hostages” and “Palestinian Prisoners”

Israel’s Minister Just Confirmed the Ceasefire Was a Lie

Israel’s own Defence Minister just went online and announced the next strike on Gaza before the hostages were even home.

All of Israeli remaining living hostages have been released under the terms of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal, but Netanyahu’s deranged Defence Minister Israel Katz has posted on X that the “great challenge” after the exchanges would be the “destruction of all of Hamas’s tunnels in Gaza,” and saying he had “instructed the IDF to prepare,” and name-checking a future US-“supervised” mechanism that would apparently allow them to do so.

That is not a rumour or a leak; it is the minister of defense posting on social media an operational directive yet to come.

This truce was sold as a humanitarian step towards hopefully permanent peace, though of course we all feared that Israel would break it at some point; Katz has all but announced that intention already. But are any of us surprised?

It took less than three days for Israel’s government to puncture its own ceasefire it seems. This morning, as the first Israeli hostages crossed the border under Red Cross escort, Defence Minister Israel Katz had already announced online that the country’s “great challenge” after the exchanges would be the destruction of all of Hamas’s tunnels in Gaza, having tweeted out that: ‘Israel's great challenge after the phase of returning the hostages will be the destruction of all of Hamas's terror tunnels in Gaza, directly by the IDF and through the international mechanism to be established under the leadership and supervision of the United States.

This is the primary significance of implementing the agreed-upon principle of demilitarizing Gaza and neutralizing Hamas of its weapons. I have instructed the IDF to prepare for carrying out the mission.’ So you’ve just declared to the world that you’re going to start pounding Gaza again when you’ve got your hostages back? That is the inference right? The ceasefire brokered by Washington under the revived Trump framework forbids Israeli offensive operations inside Gaza.

Katz’s statement therefore was not commentary — it was an order that directly contradicted the agreement he was meant to uphold. That Netanyahu has signed. The post is a confession of intent to break the truce, broadcast in real time. Katz’s phrasing was explicit military syntax. “I have instructed” is not political rhetoric; it is a record of a chain-of-command directive. The ceasefire text limits Israeli forces to defensive posture along established corridors.

Of course destroying alleged tunnels is all in self-defense... 

It's the next recipe for forever war, back to "mowing the lawn".

US Senator Bernie Sanders says Palestinians must ‘determine their future’

Progressive US Senator Bernie Sanders has released a statement on the latest developments in Israel and Gaza, saying he welcomes the captive-prisoner exchange and hopes the ceasefire will hold.

“The immediate priority now, amidst widespread malnutrition and starvation, must be to ensure that desperately needed humanitarian aid quickly reaches the people of Gaza,” said Sanders.

A global effort to rebuild Gaza must also begin, but Palestinians themselves must “guide this process and determine their future”, he added.

Sanders said the US must contend with its “role in this extremely dark chapter”, including its provision of weapons Israel used for the “horrendous destruction” of Gaza.

My statement on the release of hostages and prisoners in Gaza: pic.twitter.com/YSwYlDjqsW

— Sen. Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) October 13, 2025

White House shares text of Trump Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity

The White House has shared the wording of the Trump Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity, which was signed by the leaders of the United States, Egypt, Qatar and Turkiye.

The declaration says the leaders “welcome the truly historic commitment and implementation by all parties to the Trump Peace Agreement, ending more than two years of profound suffering and loss”.

“Together, we will implement this agreement in a manner that ensures peace, security, stability, and opportunity for all peoples of the region, including both Palestinians and Israelis,” the declaration adds.

The document was signed by Trump, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"We pursue a comprehensive vision of peace, security, and shared prosperity in the region, grounded in the principles of mutual respect and shared destiny.... We commit ourselves to a future of enduring peace." pic.twitter.com/qj38wYELVM

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 13, 2025

No peace in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Lebanon still gets attacked daily, Syria gets undermined by Israel.

‘Netanyahu has no ability to resume the war’ on Gaza

Yariv Oppenheimer, the head of The Two-State Coalition based in Tel Aviv, says that Trump is the only world leader capable of ending Israel’s war on Gaza.

“When he says the war is over, the war is over. Netanyahu has no ability to resume the war, no chance,” Oppenheimer told Al Jazeera. “He will not have the support of the Israeli public as well.”

He suggested that Israel’s leader may want to view Gaza now as he does Lebanon, where he can hit it sometimes with air strikes on Hamas headquarters.

“But I don’t think Trump will allow it. When Trump says this is the end of the war, this is what he’s given to get back the hostages in the first 72 hours of this deal. This is the world of Trump.”

sometimes? Like nearly every single day since the ceasefire.
https://thecradle.co/articles/nearly-200-killed-in-2740-israeli-violations-of-ceasefire-with-lebanon
2740 violations reported on April 15th, that's about 20 violations a day since the ceasefire.

The world and word of Trump is the last you can rely on. But for now he sees many $$$ signs in overseeing the reconstruction of Gaza. 


First desperately needed food, water, health and shelter supplies have to come in unhindered. 

WHO says it scaled up aid operations since Gaza truce


_{Trucks loaded with aid enter Gaza through the Kissufim crossing between the enclave and Israel}

Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says, “Improvement in access to health facilities and the ability to expand our missions are crucial first steps in providing immediate health support to Palestinians across Gaza.”

The World Health Organization chief said the agency has been increasingly active in different parts of the war-ravaged enclave after the ceasefire was announced.

The release of Israeli and Palestinian prisoners offers hope to everyone who has suffered over the past two years, Tedros added, noting that this week’s developments in Gaza are a significant step in the right direction.

“Gaza’s health system must be rehabilitated and rebuilt. This crisis gives us the opportunity to rebuild it better, stronger, fairer and centred on people’s needs. The best medicine is peace.”

Since the ceasefire took effect in #Gaza, @WHO teams have been scaling up our operations. So far, we have:
-Deployed an emergency medical team within 24h to boost surgical and emergency care at Al-Ahli Hospital, with more deployments planned in Gaza City as people begin to… pic.twitter.com/C6RgFWeGjY

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) October 13, 2025

Main events on October 13th

• Hamas released all 20 Israeli captives it held in Gaza, while Israel freed nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees under the terms of the ceasefire deal.
• US President Trump took a whirlwind tour to Israel and Egypt, addressing the Israeli Knesset and then co-chairing a Gaza peace summit in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.
• Speaking to a host of world leaders at the gathering in Egypt, Trump said the “war is over” and hailed “a tremendous day for the Middle East”.
• Trump and the leaders of Egypt, Turkiye and Qatar also signed a document as guarantors to the Gaza deal, which the US president said spells out “rules and regulations” for the ceasefire.
• A senior United Nations official said that more life-saving assistance – including tents, meat, flour and medicine – is being funnelled into war-ravaged Gaza.

BBC presenter repeats Netanyahu’s Gaza excuse, hostage relative has perfect reply

The BBC on Monday went into non-stop broadcast as Hamas and Israel exchanged captives with hostages. However, one BBC presenter, Clive Myrie, was left visibly dejected as his attempt to use Benjamin Netanyahu’s justification for Gaza conflict didn’t go down well with one of the family members of the hostages. Rifat Jawaid looks at the disappointment faced by this BBC presenter, who had famously cried during the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Meanwhile, Trump also confirmed that he had allowed the rearming of Hamas in Gaza.

THEY DID IT AGAIN

Israel jailed me for bringing aid to Gaza. This is what they did to us | Tadhg Hickey interview

Tadhg Hickey is an Irish comedian and activist who was part of the Gaza freedom flotilla attempting to deliver much-needed aid to the strip as Israel continued to prevent the flow of food and medicines into Gaza. He was imprisoned by the Israeli army during the humanitarian mission and released days later, having experienced poor treatment while in the custody of the IDF. He spoke to us about his experience.