Preparations begin to ramp up aid in Gaza as ceasefire brings hope for end to 2-year war

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CAIRO (AP) — Preparations were underway Sunday to ramp up aid entering the war-battered Gaza Strip under a new ceasefire deal that many are hoping will signal an end to the devastating 2-year-long war.

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

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

Associated Press footage showed dozens of trucks crossing the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with the coastal 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.

Expanding Israeli offensives and restrictions on humanitarian aid have triggered a hunger crisis, including famine in parts of the territory.

The United Nations has said it has about 170,000 metric tons of food, medicine and other humanitarian aid ready to enter once Israel gives the green light.

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

The fate of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli- and U.S.-backed contractor that replaced the U.N. aid operation in May as the primary food supplier in Gaza, remains unclear.

Food distribution sites operated by the group in the southernmost city of Rafah and central Gaza were dismantled following the ceasefire deal, several Palestinians said Sunday.

GHF had been touted by Israel and the United States as an alternative system to prevent Hamas from taking over aid. However, its operations were mired in chaos and hundreds of Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire while heading to its four sites. The Israeli military has said its troops fired warning shots to control crowds.

A GHF representative said in a statement that there might be “temporary closures of some distribution sites” during the transfer of hostages to Israel but "there is no change to our long-term plan.”

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, which has the equivalent of 6,000 trucks of aid waiting outside in Egypt and Jordan, also had no clarity on its role in the scaled-up relief effort. UNRWA spokesperson Jonathan Fowler said the agency is “standing ready” to contribute and has enough food supplies in its warehouses for the entire Gaza Strip population for three months.

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.

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 on Monday morning.

Hirsch said hospitals were ready to receive the live hostages, while the dead will be transferred to the Institute of Forensic Medicine for identification.

An international task force will start working to locate deceased hostages who are not returned within the 72-hour period, said Hirsch. Officials have said the search for the bodies of the dead, some of whom may be buried under rubble, could take time.

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 the 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” Monday with regional and international leaders attending.

Timing has not yet been announced for the release of some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel who are to be freed under the deal. They include 250 people serving life sentences in addition to 1,700 people seized from Gaza during the war and held without charge.

Dr. Mounir al-Boursh, head of the Health Ministry in Gaza, said he hopes the bodies of medical personnel who died in Israeli detention centers will be among those handed over. He called for the release of doctors Hossam Abu Safiya and Marwan al-Hams, detained from Gaza during the war.

Palestinians continued to move back to areas vacated by Israeli forces on Sunday, although many were returning to homes reduced to rubble.

Satellite photos, taken Saturday and analyzed by The Associated Press, showed a line of vehicles traveling north to Gaza City on Al Rashid Street, which runs north-south along the strip’s coastline on the Mediterranean Sea.

Tents along the coast also could be seen near Gaza City’s marina, where many have been living to avoid being targeted in Israeli bombardment of the city.

Armed police in Gaza City and southern Gaza patrolled the streets and secured aid trucks driving through areas from which the Israeli military had withdrawn, residents said. The police force is part of the Hamas-run Interior Ministry.

The pause in fighting allowed first responders to search previously inaccessible areas for bodies buried under rubble. Health officials said 233 bodies were recovered and brought to hospitals since Friday, when the truce went into effect.

Yasser el-Bureis, who was at the morgue in Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, said Sunday he and his relatives had finally retrieved the bodies of his two cousins killed months earlier as they tried to flee their homes.

“For five months, we didn’t manage to recover the bodies,” he said.

Hospitals have run short on supplies for both the living and the dead — including body bags.

The war began when Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage.

In Israel’s ensuing offensive, more than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants but says around half the deaths were women and children.

The war has destroyed large swaths of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its 2 million residents. It has also triggered other conflicts in the region, sparked worldwide protests and led to allegations of genocide that Israel denies.

While both Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza welcomed the initial halt to the fighting and plans to release the hostages and prisoners, the longer-term fate of the ceasefire remains murky. Key questions about governance of Gaza and the post-war fate of Hamas have yet to be resolved.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on X that he had instructed the Israel military to prepare to begin destroying the network of tunnels built by Hamas under Gaza "through the international mechanism that will be established under the leadership and supervision of the U.S.” once the hostages are released.

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Lidman reported from Tel Aviv. Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell and Sarah El Deeb in Cairo, Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this report.