US President Donald Trump has warned Hamas it must disarm or else it be forced to, as the remains of four more dead hostages are returned to Israel.
Mr Trump said he had directly communicated the order to Hamas and that it had agreed to disarm, as his 20-point peace proposal stated.
"If they don't disarm, we will disarm them, and it will happen quickly and perhaps violently," Mr Trump said during a meeting at the White House with Argentine President Javier Milei.
"I spoke to Hamas, and I said, 'You're going to disarm, right?'
"'Yes, sir, we're going to disarm.' That's what they told me," Mr Trump said, later clarifying that he had passed the message through intermediaries.
Hamas has not publicly committed to laying down its weapons.
Not two hours earlier, Mr Trump declared in a post on his social media platform that phase two of the Gaza ceasefire had begun.
He said the 20 Israeli hostages released on Monday were "feeling as good as can be expected".
"A big burden has been lifted, but the job is not done. The dead have not been returned, as promised!" he said.
"Phase two begins right now!"
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said four coffins carrying dead hostages from Gaza had crossed the border into Israel.
Hamas earlier transferred them to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) at a meeting point in the northern Gaza Strip at about 10pm, local time.
They will be taken to Israel's National Institute for Forensic Medicine, where identification procedures will be carried out, the IDF said.
Israeli officials said the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt would stay closed, at least through Wednesday, and the flow of aid into the Palestinian enclave would be reduced to put pressure on the militant group to hand over the remaining bodies of the hostages.
On Monday, the last 20 live hostages were released from captivity and the bodies of only four dead hostages were handed over.
In exchange, Israel released nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees and prisoners.
The Israeli military said the four bodies had been identified — one of them was a Nepalese student.
The remains of eight deceased hostages have now been released, leaving 20 still in Gaza.
Some families fear their loved ones' remains will be lost forever in the rubble of Gaza.
A special international task force is meant to help locate bodies that Hamas is not able to find.
The families of hostages accused Hamas of reneging on the deal, which stipulated it must hand over all remaining hostages, dead or alive, within 72 hours of the ceasefire starting at midday on Monday.
The militant group said locating the bodies would be difficult due to the rubble, a caveat already acknowledged by Mr Trump, who steered the ceasefire deal.
Some reports also suggest Israel informed hostage families months ago that it could be difficult to recover the bodies.
Palestinians killed and aid hindered
The ceasefire has held since the exchange, except for the Israeli military killing six Palestinians.
Although Israeli troops withdrew from urban areas in Gaza under the ceasefire that began last week, drone fire killed five people as they went to check on houses in a suburb east of Gaza City and an air strike killed one person and injured another near Khan Younis, the Gaza Health Ministry said.
The IDF said it opened fire on Tuesday to remove a "threat" posed by "suspects" who approached its forces in the northern Gaza Strip.
It said they had crossed truce lines and approached its forces after ignoring calls to turn back, in a violation of the deal.
Hamas accused Israel of violating the ceasefire.
Aid trucks have yet to be permitted to enter Gaza at the full anticipated rate of hundreds per day, and plans have yet to be implemented to open the crossing to Egypt to let some Gazans out, initially to evacuate the wounded for medical treatment.
Israel has told the United Nations it will only allow 300 aid trucks — half the agreed number — into the Gaza Strip from Wednesday and that no fuel or gas will be allowed into the enclave except for specific needs related to humanitarian infrastructure, according to a note seen by Reuters and confirmed by the UN.
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Gaza spokesperson Olga Cherevko confirmed the UN had received the note from COGAT, the arm of the Israeli military that oversees aid flows into Gaza.
COGAT had said on Friday that it expected about 600 aid trucks to enter Gaza daily during the ceasefire.
The COGAT note said the restriction had been put in place because "Hamas violated the agreement regarding the release of the bodies of the hostages".
Hamas retaking control
Meanwhile, Hamas has swiftly reclaimed Gaza's urban areas following the partial withdrawal of Israeli troops last week.
The militant group had gradually sent its men back into the streets of Gaza since the ceasefire began on Friday, moving cautiously in case it suddenly collapsed, two security sources in the territory told Reuters.
In a video circulated late on Monday, Hamas fighters dragged seven men with their hands tied behind their backs into a Gaza City square, forced them to their knees and shot them from behind as dozens of people watched from nearby shopfronts.
A Hamas source confirmed that the video was filmed on Monday and that Hamas fighters participated in the executions. Reuters was able to confirm the location by visible geographic features.
Mr Trump has given his blessing to Hamas to reassert some control of Gaza, at least temporarily.
Gaza residents said fighters were increasingly visible on Tuesday, deploying along routes needed for aid deliveries. Palestinian security sources said dozens of people had been killed in clashes between Hamas fighters and rivals in recent days.
The Palestinian presidency condemned the executions as "heinous and unacceptable under any pretext" and said they constituted "a crime, a flagrant violation of human rights, and a serious assault on the principle of the rule of law".
"It reflects the movement's insistence on imposing its authority by force and terror, at a time when our people in Gaza are suffering the ravages of war, destruction, and the blockade," it said in a statement.
A summit co-hosted by Mr Trump in Egypt on Monday ended with no public announcement of major progress towards establishing an international military force for Gaza or a new governing body.
The ABC understands low-level background talks are ongoing.
ABC/Reuters
