Turkey's intelligence chief discussed efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza in a phone call on Monday with officials from the political wing of Palestinian militant group Hamas, a Turkish security source said.

Rarely seen in the open while the war raged, masked and armed fighters spread out publicly through Gaza’s cities in a show of force on Sunday.

Rifts with Hamas and a far-right minister’s threat to resign complicated progress toward the Israeli cabinet’s vote on the deal, which includes the release of hostages.

As the Gaza ceasefire takes hold, aid workers caution that the toughest challenges are yet to come, describing the truce as only the first step on a long road to recovery.

Hundreds of Israelis gathered in Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, some cheering and some in tears, as a giant television screen broadcast the first glimpse of the first three hostages to be released under the Gaza ceasefire deal.

Smotrich said he has received assurances that Israel will resume the war after the first phase, during which 33 hostages held in Gaza are to return home and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners are to be freed. The second phase, which must still be negotiated, is to work out an end to the war and return of all remaining hostages.

A fire at a hotel at a ski resort in north-western Turkey has killed at least at least 10 people. The families of three Israeli hostages set free by Hamas have thanked everyone involved in their release as the search for bodies of thousands of casualties underway in Gaza.

"I returned yesterday and stayed next to the rubble of the house, not knowing where to go," 19-year-old Mohamed Abu Ghaly told ABC News.

Israeli forces have killed two Palestinian militants who carried out a deadly attack on a bus in the West Bank earlier this month

Israel says it has killed thousands of the armed group’s members and destroyed much of its infrastructure, but since the cease-fire started Hamas has shown it still holds power in the enclave.

Palestinians in Gaza are confronting an apocalyptic landscape of devastation after a ceasefire paused more than 15 months of