EIGHT OF THE hostages due for release in the first phase of a truce deal between Israel and Hamas are dead, Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said today.

“The families have been informed of the situation of their relatives,” Mencer told reporters, without providing the names of the deceased.

The deaths mean that of the 26 hostages yet to be freed under the first phase of the agreement, only 18 are still alive.

The truce deal, announced earlier in January after months of negotiations, took effect on January 19, bringing to a halt more than 15 months of conflict in Gaza.

Under the first phase of the agreement, 33 hostages held by militants in Gaza are to be released in exchange for more than 1,900 Palestinians held by Israel.

Seven Israeli women have been released since the start of the truce, as have 290 Palestinian prisoners.

Israel had been preventing Palestinians from returning to their homes in northern Gaza, accusing Hamas of violating the terms of the truce, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said late Sunday they would be allowed to pass after a new agreement was reached.

Hamas had said blocking the returns amounted to a truce violation.

‘We will rebuild’

Dozens of displaced Palestinians began streaming towards the north of the war-battered Gaza Strip today following the news that Israel and Hamas had reached a deal for the release of another six hostages.

Crowds began making their way north along a coastal road on foot Monday morning, carrying what belongings they could.

“This is the happiest day of my life,” said Lamees al-Iwady, a 22-year-old who returned to Gaza City today after being displaced several times.

“I feel as though my soul and life have returned to me,” she said. “We will rebuild our homes, even if it’s with mud and sand.”

A Gaza security official said that “more than 200,000 displaced people have returned to Gaza and North Gaza” in the first two hours of the day.

With the joy of return came the shock of the extent of the destruction wrought by more than a year of war.

According to the Hamas-run government media office, 135,000 tents and caravans are needed in Gaza City and the north to shelter returning families.

Still, Hamas called the return “a victory” for Palestinians that “signals the failure and defeat of the plans for occupation and displacement”.

The comments came after US President Donald Trump floated an idea to “clean out” Gaza and resettle Palestinians in Jordan and Egypt, drawing condemnation from regional leaders.

President Mahmud Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, issued a “strong rejection and condemnation of any projects” aimed at displacing Palestinians from Gaza, his office said.

Arab League rejects displacement

For Palestinians, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark memories of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba”, or catastrophe – the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.

“We say to Trump and the whole world: we will not leave Palestine or Gaza, no matter what happens,” said displaced Gaza resident Rashad al-Naji.

Trump had suggested the idea to reporters on Saturday: “You’re talking about probably a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing.”

Moving Gaza’s inhabitants – who number 2.4 million – could be done “temporarily or could be long term”, he said.

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who opposed the truce and has voiced support for re-establishing Israeli settlements in Gaza, called Trump’s suggestion “a great idea”.

The Arab League rejected it, warning against “attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land”, saying their forced displacement could “only be called ethnic cleansing”.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said “our rejection of the displacement of Palestinians is firm and will not change. Jordan is for Jordanians and Palestine is for Palestinians.”

Egypt’s foreign ministry said it rejected any infringement of Palestinians’ “inalienable rights”.