Turkey will on Monday engage leaders from the Islamic world to leverage their influence over Gaza’s future, amid growing concerns about the stability of a ceasefire that has lasted just a few weeks.

The truce, brokered on October 10 by US President Donald Trump to end the two-year-long Israel-Hamas conflict, has been increasingly fragile, challenged by ongoing Israeli strikes and reports of Palestinian attacks on Israeli forces.

Turkey, one of the most vocal critics of Israel’s Gaza offensive, will host the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Pakistan, and Indonesia in Istanbul on Monday.

These senior diplomats had previously been consulted by Trump in late September during the UN General Assembly in New York, shortly before he unveiled his plan to halt the fighting in Gaza.

According to Turkish foreign ministry sources, Ankara plans to urge the visiting ministers to support measures that would allow Palestinians greater control over Gaza’s security and governance.

On the eve of the meeting, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan also received a Hamas delegation led by Khalil al-Hayya, the movement’s chief negotiator.

“We must end the massacre in Gaza. A ceasefire in itself is not enough,” Fidan said, arguing for the two-state solution to the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We should recognise that Gaza should be governed by the Palestinians, and act with caution,” he added.

Turkey-Israel tensions

Besides its denunciations of Israel, Turkey has been instrumental in backing Hamas. Fidan, who has accused Israel of seeking excuses to break Trump’s truce, is also expected to repeat calls for Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, which is wracked by hunger and tens of thousands of deaths from the Israeli army’s offensive.

Yet Israel has long viewed Turkey’s diplomatic overtures, including towards Trump, with suspicion as a result of the country’s closeness to Hamas.

Israeli leaders have repeatedly voiced their opposition to Turkey, a NATO member with one of the region’s most credible militaries, having any role in the international peacekeeping force mooted for Gaza.

Under Trump’s plan, that stabilisation mission is meant to take over in the wake of the Israeli army’s withdrawal from the Palestinian territory.

A Turkish disaster relief team, sent to help efforts to recover the many bodies buried under Gaza’s rubble — including those of Israeli hostages seized by Hamas — has likewise been stuck at the border because of the Israeli government’s refusal to let them in, according to Ankara.

Israel announced on Sunday that it had received the remains of three additional captives from Hamas as part of the ongoing hostage-prisoner exchange under the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire agreement.

The fragile truce, in place since October 10, has largely held despite occasional flare-ups, with the deal focusing on the return of all Israeli hostages, both alive and deceased.

“Israel has received, through the Red Cross, the coffins of three fallen hostages, which were handed over to IDF and Shin Bet forces inside Gaza,” said the Prime Minister’s Office.

A spokesperson for Israel’s Health Ministry confirmed that the bodies had arrived at a national forensic center for identification and investigation into the circumstances and causes of death. Experts will then meet with the families of the deceased to discuss the findings.

Hamas’s armed wing reported that the remains were found earlier Sunday “along the route of one of the tunnels in southern Gaza.”

At the time of the ceasefire, Hamas was holding 48 hostages in Gaza, including 20 confirmed alive.

Since the truce, the group has released the surviving captives and begun handing over the remains of 28 deceased hostages, of which 17 have been returned so far—including 15 Israelis, one Thai national, and one Nepali.

Israel has accused Hamas of delaying the return of the bodies, while the Palestinian group maintains that many remains are buried under Gaza’s rubble, slowing the process.

Hamas has repeatedly requested mediators and the Red Cross to provide equipment and personnel for body recovery.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem stated that Sunday’s handover demonstrated the group’s ongoing efforts to return the bodies as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, an Israeli campaign group representing hostage families urged the government to act decisively to ensure all deceased hostages are returned.

“The Hostage Families demand that the prime minister act with determination to ensure Hamas fulfills its commitments under the agreement and returns all deceased hostages to Israel,” said the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

Life is impossible

In addition to returning the bodies of the 17 hostages, Hamas has also handed over partial remains of a hostage whose body was recovered by the Israeli army last year.

That incident sparked outrage in Israel, which accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire agreement by returning only partial remains instead of a complete body of another hostage.

“We call for the return of all 11 deceased hostages who have still not been returned to Israeli soil,” Inbal Bachar, aunt of Sahar Baruch, whose remains were handed over earlier this week, said during Baruch’s funeral on Sunday.

“We cannot continue our lives until they all return,” she said, according to a statement issued by the forum.

In Gaza, Palestinians have been hoping that an Israeli military withdrawal will follow the truce and bring an end to their ordeal.

“We want the second phase of the agreement to begin so that we can return to our homes,” said Naif al-Sulaibi, a resident of Jabalia in northern Gaza.

“As long as the Yellow Line and the army remain here, life is impossible and conditions will stay unbearable,” he added, referring to the de facto boundary marking Israeli military positions inside Gaza.

The implementation of the second phase of US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan has yet to be agreed, particularly as it concerns disarming Hamas, establishing a transitional authority and deploying an international stabilisation force in Gaza.

A 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck near the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif early on Monday, killing at least 10 people and injuring about 150, just months after a quake and strong aftershocks killed more than 2,200 people at the end of August.

Here is a look at why the war-shattered South Asian country experiences frequent tremors, and how their impact can be reduced:

Are earthquakes common in Afghanistan?

Hemmed in by rugged mountains, Afghanistan is prone to a range of natural disasters, but its earthquakes cause the most fatalities, killing about 560 people on average each year and causing annual damages estimated at $80 million.

Studies indicate at least 355 earthquakes with a magnitude higher than 5.0 have hit Afghanistan since 1990.

Why is Afghanistan prone to tremors?

Afghanistan is located on the edge of the Eurasian tectonic plate, which shares a transgression zone with the Indian plate — implying the two may converge or brush past each other — and is also influenced by the Arabian plate to its south, creating one of the world’s most tectonically active regions.

The northward movement of the Indian plate and its thrust against the Eurasian plate is usually responsible for Afghanistan’s numerous quakes.

Which areas are vulnerable?

Eastern and northeastern Afghanistan, especially regions along its borders with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan, are particularly prone to earthquakes.

This includes heavily populated Kabul, which has the highest average estimated damage due to earthquakes, amounting to $17 million every year, according to a study.

Earthquakes are also particularly dangerous in Afghanistan’s mountains where they can trigger landslides, exacerbating loss of life and property.

Which were Afghanistan’s worst earthquakes?

Afghanistan has recorded around 100 “damaging” earthquakes since 1900.

Among the worst in recent years was a magnitude 6 quake in 2022 that killed 1,000 people. Multiple quakes in one month in 2023 together killed 1,000 people and destroyed entire villages.

One of Afghanistan’s largest earthquakes, with a magnitude of 7.5, struck in 2015, killing 399 people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

Some of the greatest devastation was seen in 1998 as two earthquakes shook Afghanistan within three months – the first killing 2,300 people and the second 4,700.

How can the country build resilience?

Studies recommend new structures be built in an earthquake-resistant way and existing buildings be retrofitted to reduce chances of collapse.

Better monitoring and early warning systems must also be created for more timely alerts, while fault lines should be mapped using geospatial and remote sensing technologies to enable relocation of people in vulnerable areas, they suggest.