Three Qatari diplomats were killed and two injured in a car crash on Sunday near the Egyptian town of Sharm el-Sheikh, according to the Gulf state's embassy. Diplomats and official delegations had descended on the Red Sea resort town in recent days to negotiate a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal.

Egyptian state-linked media Al-Qahera News said five Qataris and an Egyptian driver were in the vehicle when it crashed due to a loss of control of the steering wheel.

The Qatari embassy in Cairo expressed "deep sorrow and grief" over the three diplomats' deaths. The two injured are currently receiving the necessary medical care at Sharm El Sheikh International Hospital.

Qatar, alongside fellow mediators Egypt and the United States, has been involved in months of talks leading to the Gaza ceasefire, which Israel said came into effect at 0900 GMT on Friday.

As part of the deal's first phase, Hamas will free the captives, 20 of whom Israel believes are still alive, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Key Palestinian prisoners to remain in custody

The most popular and potentially unifying Palestinian leader, Marwan Barghouti, is not among the prisoners Israel intends to free in exchange for hostages held by Hamas under the deal.

Israel has also rejected freeing other high-profile prisoners whose release Hamas has long sought, though it was not immediately clear if a list of around 250 prisoners issued on Friday on the Israeli government’s official website was final.

Senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk told Al Jazeera media network that the group insists on the release of Barghouti and other high-profile figures and that it was in discussions with mediators.

"According to the signed agreement, the prisoner exchange is set to begin on Monday morning as agreed," Hamas official Osama Hamdan told journalists.

U.S. President Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will then chair a summit of more than 20 countries in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday afternoon, the Egyptian presidency announced.

The meeting will aim "to end the war in the Gaza Strip, enhance efforts to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East, and usher in a new era of regional security and stability," it said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said he will attend, as has UK's Prime Minister Keir Starmer, his counterparts from Italy and Spain, Giorgia Miloni and Pedro Sanchez, and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Will Hamas not govern post-war Gaza？

There was no immediate word on whether Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be there while Hamas said it would not take part as it had "acted principally through... Qatari and Egyptian mediators" during talks, Hamas political bureau member Hossam Badran said.

Despite the apparent breakthrough, mediators still have the tricky task of securing a longer-term political solution that will see Hamas hand in weapons and step aside from governing Gaza.

Badran said the second phase of Trump's plan "contains many complexities and difficulties" while one Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said disarming was "out of the question."

A Hamas source close to the group's negotiating committee said that it will not participate in post-war Gaza governance, as world leaders prepare to converge on Egypt for a Gaza peace summit.

"For Hamas, the governance of the Gaza Strip is a closed issue. Hamas will not participate at all in the transitional phase, which means it has relinquished control of the Strip, but it remains a fundamental part of the Palestinian fabric," the source told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

U.S. to lead multinational force

Under the plan, as Israel conducts a phased withdrawal from Gaza's cities, it will be replaced by a multinational force from Egypt, Qatar, Türkiye and the United Arab Emirates, coordinated by a U.S.-led command center in Israel.

On Saturday, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Admiral Brad Cooper, Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner visited Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were again on the move, returning to their devastated homes.

Witkoff, Kushner and Trump's daughter Ivanka then went on to Tel Aviv to attend a gathering with the families of the remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is one of about 20 hostages believed to still be alive, said, "We will continue to shout and fight until everyone is home."

Hamas has until noon on Monday to hand over 47 remaining hostages - living and dead - from the 251 abducted in the attack two years ago, which led to the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians. 

The remains of one more hostage, held in Gaza since 2014, are also expected to be returned.

In exchange, Israel will release 250 prisoners, including some serving life sentences for deadly anti-Israeli attacks, and 1,700 Gazans detained by the military since the war broke out.

The Israeli prison service said it had moved the 250 national security detainees to two prisons ahead of the handover.  

Gazans return to devastated homes

More than 500,000 Palestinians had returned to Gaza City by Saturday evening, according to Gaza's civil defense agency.

"We walked for hours, and every step was filled with fear and anxiety for my home," said 52-year-old Raja Salmi.

When she reached the Al-Rimal neighbourhood, she found her house utterly destroyed.

"I stood before it and cried. All those memories are now just dust," she said.

Drone footage shot by AFP showed whole city blocks reduced to a twisted mess of concrete and steel reinforcing wire.

The walls and windows of five-storey apartment blocks had been torn off and now lay choking the roadsides as disconsolate residents poked through the rubble.

The UN's humanitarian office says Israel has allowed agencies to start transporting 170,000 tonnes of aid into Gaza if the ceasefire holds.

Men, women and children navigated streets filled with rubble, searching for homes amid collapsed concrete slabs, destroyed vehicles and debris.

The Gaza-based Civil Defense said Saturday that it has received reports of 9,500 missing persons since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict on Oct. 7, 2023.

Meanwhile, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office reported "massive destruction" affecting over 90 percent of civil infrastructure in Gaza, with about 30,000 housing units destroyed.