Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said on Tuesday he did not see Donald Trump's new administration increasing the risk of an Israel-Iran conflict, addressing an issue the region has feared since the start of Israel's war in Gaza, Reuters reported.

Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud also said in Davos that he hoped President Trump's approach to Iran would be met with a willingness by Tehran to positively engage with the U.S. administration and address the issue of its nuclear programme.

"Obviously a war between Iran and Israel, any war in our region is something we should try to avoid as much as possible," Prince Faisal said during the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in the Swiss mountain resort.

"I don't see the incoming U.S. administration as contributory to the risk of war, on the contrary, President Trump has been quite clear he does not favor conflict."

Fears of war between Israel and Iran increased after the Tehran-backed Palestinian Hamas group led a deadly cross-border raid on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, triggering an Israeli military offensive that dragged Iran's allies, including Lebanon's Hezbollah and Yemen's Houthis, into confrontation with Israel, read the report.

Israel unleashed a devastating war against Hamas in Gaza, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, decimating the military structure of both groups, shattering Iran's network of influence in the Middle East and upending powerful alliances that led to the ousting of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, another Iran ally.

Fifteen months after the October attacks, a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas was reached.

Prince Faisal was speaking at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Switzerland on a panel along with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who helped broker the ceasefire agreement.

The Qatari premier said the decisive involvement of Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, had made a profound difference and led to significant progress in reaching the deal.

He said he hoped the Palestinian Authority would return to play a governing role in Gaza once the war with Israel comes to an end, adding that Gazans -- and not any other country -- should decide how the enclave is to be governed.

How Gaza will be governed after the war was not directly addressed in the deal between Israel and Hamas.

Israel has rejected any governing role for Hamas, which ran Gaza before the war, but it has been almost equally opposed to rule by the Palestinian Authority, the body set up under the Oslo interim peace accords three decades ago that has limited governing power in the West Bank, Reuters reported.

Saudi's Prince Faisal also said the new Syrian government had inherited a broken country with no real institutions and needed international help to rebuild and start from scratch.

"It is essential to engage, show patience, and extend effective support to the administration in Damascus by putting out a helping hand," he said.

Lifting the burden of sanctions placed on Syria due to the actions of the previous Assad government would be a key step forward. Although the U.S. and Europe have granted some waivers, further action is necessary, the minister said.

"Syria is a shattered nation in desperate need of rebuilding. The earlier we engage and the more support we offer, the greater the chances of a successful and stable transition," he said.

Qatar's Sheikh Mohammed said Trump’s return to the White House presented significant opportunities for collaboration, emphasizing the potential to work together to transform the Middle East into a region of stability and security.

"President Trump's whole notion of making America great again is something very important. We also want to see the Middle East great again." he said.

Prince Faisal, whose country shunned Lebanon for years over the strong influence of Hezbollah on state affairs, also said he would visit Beirut later this week, marking the first such trip by a Saudi foreign minister in more than a decade, read the report.

He said the election of a Lebanese president after a lengthy power vacuum was positive, but that Riyadh needed to see real reforms in order to raise its engagement in the country.

Hamas released three Israeli hostages and Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners on Sunday, the first day of a ceasefire suspending a 15-month-old war that has devastated the Gaza Strip and inflamed the Middle East, Reuters reported.

The truce allowed Palestinians to return to bombed-out neighborhoods to begin rebuilding their lives, while relief trucks delivered much-needed aid. Elsewhere in Gaza, crowds cheered Hamas fighters who emerged from hiding.

Hamas released three Israeli hostages and Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners on Sunday, the first day of a ceasefire suspending a 15-month-old war that has devastated the Gaza Strip and inflamed the Middle East.

The truce allowed Palestinians to return to bombed-out neighborhoods to begin rebuilding their lives, while relief trucks delivered much-needed aid. Elsewhere in Gaza, crowds cheered Hamas fighters who emerged from hiding.

The Israeli military said Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari had been reunited with their mothers and released a video showing them in apparent good health. Damari, who lost two fingers when she was shot the day she was abducted, smiled and embraced her mother as she held up a bandaged hand.

"I would like you to tell them: Romi, Doron and Emily – an entire nation embraces you. Welcome home," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a commander by phone.

At Sheba Medical Center, the women were reunited with their families in long embraces that went from tears to laughter. A smiling Damari was draped in an Israeli flag. They were among more than 250 people abducted and 1,200 killed in a Hamas raid on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has said.

More than 47,000 Palestinians have since been killed in Israeli attacks, according to medical officials in Gaza. Nearly the entire 2.3 million population of Gaza is homeless. Around 400 Israeli soldiers have also died, read the report.

The truce calls for fighting to stop, aid to be sent in to Gaza and 33 of the nearly 100 remaining Israeli and foreign hostages to go free over the six-week first phase in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Many of the hostages are believed to be dead.

In the north of the Gaza Strip, Palestinians picked their way through a devastated landscape of rubble and twisted metal that had been bombed into oblivion in the war's most intense fighting.

"I feel like at last I found some water to drink after being lost in the desert for 15 months," said Aya, who said she had been displaced from her Gaza City home for more than a year.

The first phase of the truce took effect following a three-hour delay during which Israeli warplanes and artillery pounded the Gaza Strip.

That last-minute blitz killed 13 people, Palestinian health authorities said. Israel blamed Hamas for being late to deliver the names of hostages it would free, and said it had struck terrorists. Hamas said the holdup in providing the list was technical.

"Today the guns in Gaza have gone silent," U.S. President Joe Biden said on his last full day in office, welcoming a truce that had eluded U.S. diplomacy for more than a year. "We've reached this point today because of the pressure Israel built on Hamas, backed by the United States."

For Hamas, the truce provided an opportunity to emerge from the shadows after 15 months in hiding. Hamas policemen dressed in blue police uniforms swiftly deployed in some areas, and armed fighters drove through the southern city of Khan Younis, where a crowd cheered, "Greetings to Al-Qassam Brigades," the group's armed wing.

"All the resistance factions are staying in spite of Netanyahu," one fighter told Reuters.

There is no detailed plan in place to govern Gaza after the war, much less rebuild it. Any return of Hamas will test the patience of Israel, which has said it will resume fighting unless the militant group is fully dismantled, Reuters reported.

Hardline National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir quit the cabinet over the ceasefire, though his party said it would not try to bring down Netanyahu's government. The other most prominent hardliner, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, stayed in the government but said he would quit if the war ends without Hamas completely destroyed.

The truce took effect on the eve of Monday's inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. Trump's national security adviser-designate, Mike Waltz, said that if Hamas reneges on the agreement, the United States would support Israel "in doing what it has to do."

"Hamas will never govern Gaza. That is completely unacceptable," he said.

The streets in shattered Gaza City were already busy with groups of people waving the Palestinian flag and filming the scenes on their mobile phones. Several carts loaded with household possessions travelled down a thoroughfare scattered with rubble and debris, read the report.

Ahmed Abu Ayham, 40, of Gaza City said that while the ceasefire may have spared lives, the losses and destruction made it no time for celebration.

"We are in pain, deep pain and it is time to hug one another and cry," he said.

A ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip took effect on Sunday after a nearly three-hour delay, pausing a 15-month-old war that has brought devastation and seismic political change to the Middle East.

Residents and a medical worker in Gaza said that they had heard no new fighting or military strikes since about half an hour before it was finally implemented. Reuters reported.

Israeli airstrikes and artillery attacks killed 13 Palestinians between 0630 GMT, when the ceasefire was meant to begin, and 0915 GMT, when it actually took effect, Palestinian medics said.

Israel blamed Hamas for the delay after the Palestinian militant group failed to provide a list naming the first three hostages to be released under the deal.

Hamas attributed the delay to "technical" reasons, without specifying what those were.

A Palestinian official familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the delay occurred because mediators had asked for 48 hours of "calm" before the ceasefire's implementation, but continued Israeli strikes right up until the deadline had made it difficult to send the list.

Two hours after the deadline, Hamas said it had sent the list of names, and Israeli officials confirmed receipt. Hamas named the hostages it was to release on Sunday as Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari.

Israel did not immediately confirm the names.

The highly anticipated ceasefire deal could help usher in an end to the Gaza war, which began after Hamas, which controls the tiny coastal territory, attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel's response has reduced much of Gaza to rubble and killed nearly 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza-based health authorities.

The war also set off a confrontation throughout the Middle East between Israel and its arch-foe Iran, which backs Hamas and other anti-Israeli and anti-American paramilitary forces across the region.

HOSTAGE LIST, LAST-MINUTE ATTACKS

Ahead of the ceasefire's agreed implementation at 0630 GMT, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it could not take effect until Hamas gave the names of the hostages up for release on Sunday.

Israeli military spokespeople said in separate statements on Sunday that their aircraft and artillery had attacked "terror targets" in northern and central Gaza, and that the military would continue to attack the strip as long as Hamas did not meet its obligations under the ceasefire.

The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said that at least 13 people were killed in the Israeli attacks and dozens wounded. Medics reported tanks firing at the Zeitoun area of Gaza City, and said that an airstrike and tank fire also hit the northern town of Beit Hanoun, sending residents who had returned there in anticipation of the ceasefire fleeing.

An air raid siren that sounded in the Sderot area of southern Irael had been a false alarm, the Israeli military said in a separate statement.

Israeli forces had started withdrawing from areas in Gaza's Rafah to the Philadelphi corridor along the border between Egypt and Gaza, pro-Hamas media reported early on Sunday.

The three-stage ceasefire agreement followed months of on-off negotiations brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the United States, and came just ahead of the Jan. 20 inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

Its first stage will last six weeks, during which 33 of the remaining 98 hostages - women, children, men over 50, the ill and wounded - will be released in return for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

They include 737 male, female and teen-aged prisoners, some of whom are members of militant groups convicted of attacks that killed dozens of Israelis, as well as hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza in detention since the start of the war.

The first three are female hostages expected to be released through the Red Cross on Sunday. In return for each, 30 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails are to be released.

Under the terms of the deal, Hamas will inform the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) where the meeting point will be inside Gaza and the ICRC is expected to begin driving to that location to collect the hostages, an official involved in the process told Reuters.

ENDING THE WAR?

U.S. President Joe Biden's team worked closely with Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to push the deal over the line.

As his inauguration approached, Trump had repeated his demand that a deal be done swiftly, warning repeatedly that there would be "hell to pay" if the hostages were not released.

But what will come next in Gaza remains unclear in the absence of a comprehensive agreement on the postwar future of the enclave, which will require billions of dollars and years of work to rebuild.

And although the stated aim of the ceasefire is to end the war entirely, it could easily unravel.

Hamas, which has controlled Gaza for almost two decades, has survived despite losing its top leadership and thousands of fighters.

Israel has vowed it will not allow Hamas to return to power and has cleared large stretches of ground inside Gaza, in a step widely seen as a move towards creating a buffer zone that will allow its troops to act freely against threats in the enclave.

In Israel, the return of the hostages may ease some of the public anger against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government over the Oct. 7 security failure that led to the deadliest single day in the country's history.

MIDEAST SHOCKWAVES

The war sent shockwaves across the region, triggering a conflict with the Tehran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah movement and bringing Israel into direct conflict with its arch-foe Iran for the first time.

It has also transformed the Middle East. Iran, which spent billions building up a network of militant groups around Israel, has seen its "Axis of Resistance" wrecked and was unable to inflict more than minimal damage on Israel in two major missile attacks.

Hezbollah, whose huge missile arsenal was once seen as the biggest threat to Israel, has seen its its top leadership killed and most of its missiles and military infrastructure destroyed.

On the diplomatic front, Israel has faced outrage and isolation over the death and devastation in Gaza.

Netanyahu faces an International Criminal Court arrest warrant on war crimes allegations and separate accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice.

Israel has reacted with fury to both cases, rejecting the charges as politically motivated and accusing South Africa, which brought the original ICJ case as well as the countries that have joined it, of antisemitism.