Tens of thousands of forcibly displaced Palestinians are returning to devastated towns and cities in northern Gaza as the Israeli military ceases fire and partially withdraws from the territory under the first phase of a peace deal with Hamas. US President Donald Trump said Israeli captives held in Gaza are due for release on Monday.

Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) have said they reject “any foreign guardianship” of the Gaza Strip. Gaza officials have called for an independent, international investigation into war crimes and genocide during Israel’s war on the enclave.

UNRWA has called for all crossings into Gaza to be opened, saying that there are 6,000 aid trucks ready to reach Gaza in hours. Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 67,211 people and wounded 169,961 since October 2023. A total of 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023, attacks and about 200 were taken captive.

Israel will resume its qualification campaign for the FIFA World Cup 2026 today amid widespread public protests and growing demands for football’s governing body to sanction the country over its genocide in Gaza.

Despite the widespread opposition, Israel’s upcoming World Cup qualifiers – against Norway on Saturday and Italy on Tuesday – will go ahead as scheduled after FIFA sidestepped the issue by saying it cannot “solve geopolitical problems”.

Football fans and several experts have accused FIFA and UEFA of double standards over their failure to act against Israel in the two years of its war on Gaza, while swiftly sanctioning Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The apparently preferential treatment given to Israel’s football team is an extension of the “total impunity” the country has enjoyed amid the two-year war, according to Abdullah Al-Arian, associate professor of history at Georgetown University in Qatar.