JERUSALEM >> Israel’s military withdrew Sunday from a key corridor dividing the Gaza Strip, leaving nearly all of the territory’s north, as required by a tenuous ceasefire with Hamas before any negotiations for a longer-lasting agreement.

The military’s departure from the Netzarim Corridor in Gaza came as the Israeli government sent a delegation to Qatar over the weekend to discuss the next group of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners to be freed during the ceasefire agreement’s initial phase, which went into effect last month and is ongoing.

The gaunt appearances of three Israeli hostages who were released Saturday, stoking public comparisons to Holocaust victims, heaped new pressure on the negotiations.In a statement Sunday, the Israeli military said troops were “implementing the agreement” to leave the corridor and allow hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to continue returning home to northern Gaza.

Two Israeli military officials and a soldier in Gaza who were not authorized to discuss the situation publicly or by name said the troops had already left the Netzarim Corridor by Sunday morning.

Hamas also said that Israeli troops had left the zone, saying in a statement that it was “a victory for the will of our people.”

Sunday’s withdrawal from the corridor means that the presence of Israeli troops in Gaza is now mostly limited to a small sliver of land in southern Gaza, near the Egyptian border, and a buffer zone along the Israeli border.

Gaza’s Interior Ministry alerted Palestinians heading north Sunday that their vehicles could still be inspected by foreign security contractors there to prevent weapons from being transferred from the south.

The Israeli military had ordered a mass evacuation of northern Gaza in the early days of the war and patrolled the corridor, in part to prevent Palestinians from returning. Israeli troops had already partly withdrawn from the Netzarim Corridor last month, leaving the foreign contractors to fill the void.

Their complete withdrawal from the corridor was required under the first 42-day phase of the ceasefire deal — which is now at the halfway point — and necessary to advance to its next stage to end the war in Gaza fully.

Pitfalls to next ceasefire phase

Significant new pitfalls to reaching an agreement for the next phase — which could involve a complete Israeli military withdrawal from all of Gaza — emerged over the past week, however, after President Donald Trump said that the United States could take over Gaza and turn it into the “Rivera of the Middle East” by relocating its Palestinian residents.

Speaking on Sunday, Trump repeated his pledge to take control of the Gaza Strip.

“I’m committed to buying and owning Gaza. As far as us rebuilding it, we may give it to other states in the Middle East to build sections of it. Other people may do it through our auspices. But we’re committed to owning it, taking it, and making sure that Hamas doesn’t move back. There’s nothing to move back into. The place is a demolition site. The remainder will be demolished,” he told reporters onboard Air Force One as he traveled to the Super Bowl.

On Sunday, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry again rejected the proposal, repeating that no lasting peace agreement could be reached without creating a sovereign Palestinian state — a diplomatic goal for generations, but one that officials and experts now say is probably all but impossible to achieve.

Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said Sunday that it would host an emergency Arab summit late this month in Cairo “to address the new and dangerous developments in the Palestinian cause,” noting that the meeting was being coordinated with high level officials in Arab nations and had been scheduled at the request of Palestinian officials.

The emaciated appearance of three Israeli hostages who were freed by Hamas on Saturday has also spurred widespread concern in Israel that its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has not acted quickly enough to ensure their or others’ release — increasing the pressure on the Israeli government to bring the rest of the captives home and advance to the second phase of a deal.

On Sunday, the family of Alon Ohel, one of the hostages still being held, said in a statement released by a group representing relatives of the captives, that for the first time in the more than 490 days since he was seized, they had received word that he is alive and that he has been held in tunnels in Gaza along with some people who were recently freed. The statement demanded that Israeli leaders “take the necessary humanitarian steps to rescue Alon and the other victims from the hell they are experiencing.”

No progress expected in Qatar

But despite the presence of negotiators and mediators this weekend in Qatar, no progress was expected in talks concerning the next stage of the truce until Netanyahu convenes a meeting of his top security officials in the coming days.

In an interview Saturday in Washington, where he had been meeting with the Trump administration, Netanyahu said Hamas, not he, was to blame for the hostages’ conditions. He predicted that at least a half-dozen more hostages would be released by the end of next week.

Even as Israeli troops left the key corridor in Gaza, intermittent violence continued. Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for the civil defense agency in Gaza, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, said that three people were killed and several were wounded by Israeli gunfire in eastern Gaza City and warned residents to stay away from the Israeli border and military.

The Israeli military also kept up raids and patrols in the occupied West Bank that it says are aimed at rooting out militants before potential attacks. “We will continue to exert a very, very strong offensive effort” in the West Bank, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, the military’s departing chief of staff, told troops Sunday.

Palestinian health officials there said at least two people, including a woman who was eight months pregnant, were killed in the Nour al-Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem. The Israeli military said that its police criminal investigation unit had begun an inquiry.

UN chief: Famine mostly averted

Famine has been mostly averted in Gaza as a surge of aid enters the territory during a fragile ceasefire, the United Nations humanitarian chief said Sunday. But he warned the threat could return quickly if the truce collapses.

Tom Fletcher spoke to The Associated Press after a two-day visit to Gaza, where hundreds of trucks carrying humanitarian aid have arrived each day since the ceasefire began on Jan. 19.

“The threat of famine, I think, is largely averted,” Fletcher said in Cairo. “Those starvation levels are down from where they were before the ceasefire.”

This report includes information from the Associated Press.