Efforts were underway to secure the release this week of a larger number of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, Israeli and Palestinian sources said Tuesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Netanyahu is making tremendous efforts" to release six living hostages and the bodies of four others this week, an Israeli official source told AFP.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Tuesday that Israel would begin negotiations "this week" on the second phase of a fragile ceasefire deal in Gaza.

"We had yesterday night a security cabinet meeting. We decided to open negotiations on the second phase. It will happen this week," Saar said of the talks, which were originally supposed to start on February 3.

Israelis have marked 500 days of war in Gaza with protests demanding further progress on a ceasefire so all remaining hostages can be returned.

People demonstrated in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Monday as less than two weeks remain in the ceasefire's current phase. Talks on the more difficult second phase are yet to start. Over 70 hostages remain in Gaza, around half thought to be dead.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that he was "committed" to U.S. President Donald Trump's plan for Gaza, which involves displacing more than two million inhabitants of the Palestinian territory.

"Just as I have committed to, on the day after the war in Gaza, there will be neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority. I am committed to U.S. President Trump's plan for the creation of a different Gaza," Netanyahu said in a statement.

A planned Saudi meeting of Arab leaders in response to US President Donald Trump's plan to take control of Gaza has been postponed by a day and expanded, Arab diplomats said on Monday.

"The mini Arab summit in Riyadh has been postponed from Thursday to Friday, February 21," a Saudi source told AFP. An Arab diplomatic source confirmed the new date.

When Hamas threatened to call off the planned release of three Israeli hostages last week, U.S. President Donald Trump stepped into the picture with an unexpected ultimatum.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump called on Hamas to release all of the more than 70 hostages it is holding by noon on Saturday. Otherwise, he warned, "all hell is going to break loose."

Israel issued a tender for the construction of nearly 1,000 additional settler homes in the occupied West Bank, an anti-settlement watchdog said Monday.

Peace Now says the development of 974 new housing units would allow the population of the Efrat settlement to expand by 40% and further block the development of the nearby Palestinian city of Bethlehem. Hagit Ofran, who leads the group's settlement monitoring, said construction can begin after the contracting process and issuing of permits, which could take another year at least.

Israel's security cabinet was set to discuss on Monday the next phase of the ceasefire with Hamas, as top U.S. diplomat Marco Rubio began a visit to Saudi Arabia where he will push Donald Trump's proposal for a U.S. takeover of Gaza.

Rubio travelled to Riyadh from Israel, where he kicked off his first Middle East trip as Trump's secretary of state.

Top U.S. diplomat Marco Rubio and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a united front Sunday against their common enemies, threatening to "open the gates of hell" on Hamas and "finish the job" against Iran.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Israel's prime minister in Jerusalem on Sunday for talks on the Gaza ceasefire, launching a Middle East tour a day after the latest hostage-prisoner exchange.

On his first visit to the region as Washington's top diplomat, Rubio is expected to push U.S. President Donald Trump's widely condemned proposal to take control of Gaza and relocate its more than two million residents.