JOHN YANG: Good evening, I'm John Yang.

President Trump leaves Washington and the government shutdown behind to highlight a diplomatic deal making accomplishment in the Middle East.

The anticipated release of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

This afternoon he left the White House headed to Israel.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S.

President: This is the first time everybody is amazed and they're thrilled and it's an honor to be involved and we're going to have an amazing time and it's going to be something that's never happened before.

JOHN YANG: Tomorrow, Mr.

Trump is to meet with hostage families and address the Israeli Parliament in Jerusalem.

Then he'll fly to the Egyptian Red Sea resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh for a summit of Arab leaders who backed the agreement.

Inside Gaza, the Israeli military pulled back to a new defensive line as part of the ceasefire and desperate Palestinians swarmed aid trucks, not even waiting for them to stop before clamoring for suppl.

The next steps are unclear as many details about the future of Gaza have yet to be worked out.

Anshel Pfeffer is the Israel correspondent for The Economist.

He's based in Jerusalem.

Anshel the release of the hostages as expected tomorrow, is going to close a chapter, a two year chapter that's been painful on both sides, both in Israel and in Gaza, albeit in different ways.

What's the mood in Israel where you are and is there any way you can tell what Gazans are feeling?

ANSHEL PFEFFER, Israel Correspondent, The Economist: Well, the mood in Israel is both expectant, but also there is concern that something can go wrong at the last moment.

And the vigils I went to over the last couple of days were all hopefully this is the last time we're standing here.

And these are people who have no personal relationship or acquaintance with the hostages really so much a representation of Israeli society which has been gripped by the hostages saga for the last two years.

I'm not on the ground in Gaza.

I was there on an embed a week and a half ago.

But it's very clear that the situation there is the beginning of a very long road of reconstruction.

Entire neighborhoods, at least one Gazan city, have been flattened in this war.

So many of those you've seen in the footage, hundreds of thousands who are streaming back mainly to Gaza City into parts of Khan Younis, are not going to discover their home standing, and they'll have to camp out for a long time on the rubble where their homes once stood.

And so this is going to be a very long process which is exacerbated, as we've seen in the last couple of days, by Hamas fighters coming out from various hiding places and trying to reassert themselves.

There seems to be a power vacuum in parts of Gaza with the reports over the last few hours of fighting between Hamas and some of the clans who wanted to take control of their areas.

So I think that hopefully what will be tomorrow on the agenda in the conference in Egypt, which Donald Trump is going to check, will be about how to try and maintain control of those areas in Gaza.

JOHN YANG: And does this move us any closer to what Gaza will look like after the war?

Who will run it?

Will Hamas lay down their arms, what their role would be?

ANSHEL PFEFFER: But what we've seen in this very unique type of diplomacy that Trump and his envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have been executing the last few days is that they're taking it very much stage by stage.

Last Wednesday night, they clinched an agreement, but that was an agreement on these very first stages, on the hostage release, on the ceasefire, the Israeli withdrawal from all these populated areas in Gaza.

So that is now taking place.

It's being implemented over the next 24 hours.

The next stage, which is the immediate day after in Gaza, which government will take care of civilian affairs.

It's supposed to be a technocratic independent government without Hamas involvement.

There is an as yet unspecified peacekeeping force which is supposed to be there.

We don't even know yet any of the countries which may be contributing soldiers.

The United States has made it clear that it will be very much involved in this force, but will not have any boots on the ground.

So whose boots will be on the ground?

And that's important because the next most important stage is the disarmament of Hamas.

Now, Hamas haven't officially agreed to that yet, and there's all kind of talks behind the scenes.

If they'll hand over their weapons, which weapons they'll hand over and to whom will they hand it over to international force?

Will it be handed over to the Palestinian Authority, which is also has a role which is yet to be clarified in all of this.

So some of these things may be thrashed out or at least begin to be thrashed out tomorrow afternoon.

But that's still not the long term future of Gaza.

That's just the next stage, weeks or months.

And on the Israeli side, Israel has set some conditions and these were recognized in the Trump plan for when it would carry out further withdrawals.

Getting the IDF to leave that area will also involve various milestones of stabilizing Gaza and disarming Hamas.

So these are all very, very important issues which have yet to be dealt with in any kind of detail or any kind of agreement to be achieved regarding these issues.

JOHN YANG: Anshel Pfeffer, the economist in Jerusalem tonight, thank you very much.