It is a huge milestone in his recovery, since he travelled to Jordan last month after getting Israeli military approval to leave Gaza.

Rami dreams of playing football one day, like Cristiano Ronaldo. But he is still in pain and quickly tires, having to sit down on a plastic chair, exhausted from the effort.

His bandaged legs – one of them splinted – are badly scarred and withered.

Every step forward is hard.

Doctors in Gaza had urged the family to agree to have both of his legs amputated. But his eight-year-old brother, Abdul Salam, had already lost his lower right leg due to his injuries and their mother, Islam, begged the surgeons to save Rami’s limbs.

The boys had been fast asleep in the family’s third-floor flat in Maghazi in central Gaza when, their mother says, an Israeli air strike targeted the building next door, raining rubble and shrapnel on the children.

Rami’s 12-year-old brother, Mustafa, was killed, his body blown to pieces.

His heart, pierced with shrapnel, was only found two days later, Islam says. The family gave it a separate burial.

The UN says at least 14,500 children are reported to have been killed and many more badly wounded in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, which began after Hamas gunmen attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, killing around 1,200 people.

Medical evacuations from Gaza are critical, it says, because the healthcare system there has been devastated. Only 20 of the territory’s 35 hospitals are partially functional and there are shortages of essential medicines and equipment.

An estimated 30,000 Gazans – like Rami and Abdul Salam – have been left with life-changing injuries which will require years of rehabilitation, according to the World Health Organization.

It has helped facilitate the evacuation of hundreds of patients since 1 February when the Rafah crossing with Egypt reopened for them. But it says that between 12,000 and 14,000 people – among them 4,500 children – still need to be brought out for treatment.

“The war has exacted a horrific toll on Gaza’s children,” the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) said when a ceasefire deal was announced in January.

Rami endured several surgical procedures without painkillers, anaesthesia or antibiotics, his mother told the BBC. His wounds became so infected that they were crawling with maggots. Doctors did not think his legs could be saved.

“Rami was in such pain, he was screaming ‘God, you’ve taken my brother, now take me too!'” Islam says.

And then, in January, a rare chance came up – for Rami and his mother to be evacuated to Jordan for treatment at a specialised hospital for reconstructive surgery, run by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Jordan’s capital, Amman.

It is currently treating 13 children from Gaza, but has the capacity to take in dozens more.

“It’s the only hospital I know of providing physical and mental rehabilitation for victims of war,” says Marc Schakal, MSF programme manager for Jordan, Syria and Yemen. “It’s multi-disciplinary care, not just surgery.”

Rami has a psychologist, surgeon and physiotherapist. He is also being fed, clothed, and taught at MSF’s small “School of the Future”, a bright prefabricated building in the grounds of the hospital. After missing so much education, he is a keen learner.

But he has also been missing his father Mohammed and his brother, Abdul Salam – who needs a prosthetic leg but wasn’t able to leave Gaza with him.

They’re grateful for their treatment, but both he and his mother want to return home as soon as they can.

“Gaza is beautiful,” Rami told me. “In Gaza before the war, we used to have medical treatment, but then the aid stopped.”

With the facilities and expertise at the MSF hospital, he’s now making quick progress.

“He arrived in a wheelchair,” says his physiotherapist, Zaid Alqaisi, who has formed a strong bond with Rami while helping him to walk again.

“He’s very motivated. He wants to get back to his friends and his family. He wants to make his dad proud.”

He also wants to swim again in the sea in Gaza.

But many more operations lie ahead, and Rami and his mother have no idea when they will return home.

Not knowing if they will be allowed back into Gaza is another huge stress for all of the Palestinian patients on top of their trauma, according to psychologist Zainoun al-Sunna.

Sharing a hospital room with Rami is a withdrawn and traumatized five-year-old boy, Abdul Rahman al-Madhoun, who also needs surgery on his legs.

He was in his mother’s arms when she was killed in an air strike in October 2023, along with his siblings. In hospital in Gaza, a nurse trying to cheer him up told him his mother had turned into a star.

“Since then, he looks up into the sky at night, looking for stars and talking to them,” his aunt Sabah says. “He doesn’t talk to other people. But I hear him saying to the stars: ‘Mummy I’ve eaten, Mummy I’m going to sleep now.'”

The psychological injuries of the hospital patients are often tougher than the physical.

“Some will never recover,” says hospital director Roshan Kumarasamy, who says that reconstructive surgery will be needed on patients from Gaza for years to come because of an “unimaginably massive spectrum of injuries”.

But Rami is strong and determined. When he breaks down in tears thinking of Mustafa, he reassures me it’s “OK”.

And when he and his mother manage to get through to his family in Gaza on a video call, Rami is eager to show them how he can now stand on his own two feet.

His father cheers him on, saying: “Rami, you’re a hero.”

And now his family have another reason to celebrate – Rami’s brother, Abdul Salam, and his father have just been given permission by Israel to leave Gaza for Jordan as well.

In the weeks to come, he should be fitted with a new leg, allowing both injured boys to relearn how to walk.

The Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas has looked shaky since it came into force on 19 January but now looks the closest yet to totally falling apart.

A senior Egyptian source told the BBC that regional mediators Egypt and Qatar were “intensifying their diplomatic efforts in an attempt to salvage the ceasefire agreement”.

A top-level Hamas delegation has now arrived in Cairo for talks “to contain the current crisis”, a Hamas official told the BBC. He reiterated his group’s “full commitment” to the terms of the deal.

On Tuesday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “If Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon, the ceasefire will end and the [Israeli military] will resume intense fighting.”

However, there has been mixed messaging on whether he means all 76 hostages still in Gaza – in line with the high-stakes ultimatum recommended by US President Donald Trump.

Trump was reacting to a Hamas threat to derail the agreement on Monday.

It complained of Israeli ceasefire violations, in particular relating to aid, and warned that it would delay the release of hostages on Saturday.

In the past week, the president’s new radical plan for a US takeover of Gaza – without its two million Palestinian residents – has also changed the context for the ceasefire which his administration helped to broker.

So, what more do we know about what has been happening behind the scenes?

When it comes to the outcome of the four-hour Israeli security cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Israeli journalists admitted puzzlement over contradictory and confusing briefings.

After the Israeli prime minister’s video message demanded the release of “our” hostages, the first reports – quoting an unnamed senior Israeli official – said this referred to the original three male hostages scheduled to be freed.

It was then said that Israel expected the final nine living hostages slated for release in the six-week first phase of the ceasefire to be freed, which is supposed to see a total of 33 captives handed over.

Key ministers then began to weigh in. Miri Regev – a close ally of Netanyahu – said on X the decision was “very clear” and echoed the Trump demand. She said: “By Saturday, everyone will be released!”

The far-right Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich – who has threatened to leave Netanyahu’s coalition if there is not a return to fighting at the end of the six-week ceasefire deal – went further still.

On social media, he proposed telling Hamas to release all the hostages or else have “the gates of hell” opened, with no fuel, water or humanitarian aid entering Gaza.

He said there should be “only fire and brimstone” from Israeli warplanes and tanks, with the strip completely occupied and its population expelled.

“We have all the international backing for this matter,” he stated.

His comments indicate how Trump’s post-war vision for Gaza has strengthened the far-right in Israel.

That is said to worry the Israeli security chiefs who negotiated the current ceasefire deal and believe its collapse will endanger hostages’ lives.

Israeli media report that they are pushing for a way to bring back the next three captives held by Hamas on schedule at the weekend.

Hostages’ families and their supporters have been alarmed by the latest developments, as have war-weary Gazans.

The fact that the Hamas leader for Gaza, Khalil al-Hayya, is leading a delegation to follow up on implementation in Cairo, shows that the armed group is also trying to get the ceasefire agreement back on track.

Since 19 January, the deal has seen a total of 16 Israeli hostages brought home in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Five Thai farm workers were also released.

At the same time, Israeli troops have withdrawn to just inside the perimeter of Gaza, including along the Egypt border.

The relative calm has allowed hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to return to their own neighbourhoods and brought in a surge of humanitarian aid.

However, the current impasse stems from Hamas’s claim that Israel has not upheld its promises for the first phase of the truce.

It says that this required Israeli authorities to allow about 300,000 tents and 60,000 caravans into Gaza.

With so many people returning to the ruins of their homes – during cold, wet wintery weather – such shelters have been desperately needed.

Fuel and generators are also said to be in short supply – especially in the north of Gaza – where it is urgently required, especially for water pumps and bakeries.

It is hard to verify exactly what has gone into the strip.

According to figures quoted by the UN, “since the ceasefire came into effect, 644,000 people across Gaza have received shelter assistance including tents, sealing-off materials and tarpaulins”.

The Israeli military body Cogat said that Israel was “committed to and is fulfilling its obligation to facilitate the entry of 600 humanitarian aid trucks into the Gaza Strip each day”.

It added: “According to the data available to us, since the agreement came into effect, hundreds of thousands of tents have entered the Gaza Strip.”

Despite the conflicting accounts, it can be assumed that issues over aid that Israel allows into Gaza could be resolved by mediators.

“Cairo and Doha are urging all parties to adhere to the terms of the agreement amid political and field complexities that make the task more challenging,” the senior Egyptian source told the BBC.

“The continuation of the ceasefire is in everyone’s interest, and we warn that the collapse of the agreement will lead to a new wave of violence with serious regional repercussions.”

Even if the immediate crisis can be overcome by this weekend, then it will still leave the next stage of ceasefire talks unresolved.

The first phase of the deal is supposed to end in March, unless Hamas and Israel agree an extension. So far, negotiations on that have been put off.

The Israeli prime minister delayed discussions on the next phase amid pressure from within his governing coalition and growing evidence during the ceasefire that – in contradiction to his war goals – Hamas remains a significant political and military force in Gaza.

During hostage handovers and aid distribution, Hamas has sought to project an image of its own power.

Though it has previously signalled willingness to share power with other Palestinian factions, it still appears unlikely to disarm.

On top of this, Trump doubling down on his idea of turning Gaza into a Mediterranean travel destination – after relocating those living there to Jordan and Egypt – has caused shock and outrage across the Arab world.

Egypt says it has formulated its own comprehensive Gaza reconstruction plan – which will not involve Palestinians leaving their land.

The leaders of Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are expected to meet ahead of a conference in Cairo on 27 February.

The ongoing dispute about the future of Gaza adds to the confusion and sense of deep mistrust amid efforts to solve the present issues.

Jordan, a key US ally, has been treading a tightrope between its military and diplomatic ties, and popular support for the Palestinians at home.

Those fault lines, already tested by the Gaza War, are being pushed to breaking point by Trump’s plans for Gaza’s peace.

He has expanded on his demand that Gazans be moved to Jordan and Egypt, telling a Fox News anchor that they would not have the right to return home – a vision that, if enforced, would contravene international law.

On Monday he said he might withhold aid to Jordan and Egypt if they did not take in Palestinian refugees.

Some of the fiercest opponents of moving Gazans to Jordan are the Gazans who moved here before.

Some 45,000 people live crammed into the Gaza Camp, near Jordan’s northern town of Jerash, one of several Palestinian refugee camps here.

Sheets of corrugated iron hang over narrow shop doorways, and children rattle along on donkeys between the market stalls.

All the families here trace their roots back to Gaza: to Jabalia, Rafah, Beit Hanoun. Most left after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, seeking temporary shelter. Generations later, they are still here.

“Donald Trump is an arrogant narcissist,” 60-year-old Maher Azazi tells me. “He has a mentality from the Middle Ages, the mentality of a tradesman.”

Maher left Jabalia as a toddler. Some of his family are still there, now picking through the rubble of their home for the bodies of 18 missing relatives.

Despite the devastation there, Mr Azazi says Gazans today have learned the lessons of previous generations and most “would rather jump into the sea than leave”.

Those who once saw leaving as a temporary bid for refuge, now see it as helping Israel’s far-right nationalists take Palestinian land.

“We Gazans have been through this before,” says Yousef, who was born in the camp. “Back then, they told us it would be temporary, and we would return to our home. The right to return is a red line.”

“When our ancestors left, they had no weapons to fight, like Hamas has now,” another man tells me. “Now the younger generation are fully aware of what happened with our ancestors, and it will never happen again. Now there is resistance.”

Palestinians are not the only ones to seek refuge in Jordan – a tiny superpower of stability surrounded by the Middle East’s many conflicts.

Iraqis arrived here, fleeing war in the early 2000s. A decade later, Syrians came too, prompting Jordan’s king to warn that his country was at “boiling point”.

Many native Jordanians blame the waves of refugees for high unemployment and poverty at home. A food bank by the mosque in central Amman told us it hands out 1,000 meals a day.

Waiting for work outside the mosque, we met Imad Abdallah and his friend Hassan – both day labourers who have not worked in months.

“The situation in Jordan used to be great, but when there was the war in Iraq, things got worse, when there was the war in Syria, it got worse, now there’s a war in Gaza, it’s got a lot worse,” Hassan said. “Any war that happens near us, we become worse off, because we’re a country that helps and takes people in.”

Imad was blunter, worried about feeding his four children.

“The foreigners come, and take our jobs,” he told me. “Now I’m four months without a job. I have no money, no food. If Gazans come, we will die.”

But Jordan is also under pressure from its key military ally. Trump has already suspended to it US aid worth more than $1.5 billion a year. And many here are braced for a growing confrontation between the new US president and their own political leaders, who are pushing back.

Jawad Anani, a former deputy prime minister close to the Jordanian government, says King Abdullah’s message to Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday will be clear: “We consider any attempt by Israel or others to push people out of their own houses in Gaza and the West Bank as a criminal act. But any attempt to push those people into Jordan will be tantamount to a declaration of war.”

Even if Gazans wanted to relocate voluntarily, on a temporary basis, as part of a wider Middle East plan, he said, the trust simply was not there.

“There is no confidence,” he said. “As long as Netanyahu is involved, he and his government, there is no confidence in any promises that anybody makes. Period.”

Trump’s determination to push his vision for Gaza could end up pushing a key US ally into a critical choice.

Last Friday, thousands protested here against Trump’s proposal.

Jordan is home to US military bases, and millions of refugees, and its security co-operation is crucial for Israel, worried about smuggling routes into the occupied West Bank.

Any risks to Jordan’s stability mean risks for its allies too. If stability is Jordan’s superpower, the threat of unrest is its biggest weapon and its best defence.

Images showed massive crowds waiting to pass the Netzarim Corridor, a road which separates north and south Gaza and is controlled by Israeli troops.

Israel was scheduled to withdraw its forces from the area this weekend but they remained after the government accused Hamas of breaching the ceasefire agreement.

Israel said it would continue to block the route to northern Gaza because Arbel Yehud, a female civilian hostage, was not released on Saturday. Hamas responded by providing proof she is alive and said she would be released next weekend.

On Saturday, Hamas freed four Israeli female soldiers it had held hostage since 7 October 2023, in return for 200 Palestinian prisoners. Ms Yehud, a non-military hostage, was scheduled to be freed first.

Mediators in Egypt and Doha are holding meetings over the smooth and safe return of displaced Palestinians to their homes in the north but a senior Palestinian official told the BBC that the process remains stalled.

There were some chaotic scenes on Saturday evening as Palestinians who had expected to be able to walk north following the completion of the hostage release found the road was still blocked by Israeli tanks.

As crowds gathered along al-Rashid road in central Gaza to return home, gunshots were reportedly fired.

In one video posted online, which BBC Verify has confirmed was filmed on that road, people could be seen panicking and four gunshots could be heard.

In a separate incident, Reuters news agency, citing the Hamas-run health ministry, and Palestinian media reported one person was killed and others injured.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said troops in central Gaza had fired shots after “several gatherings of dozens of suspects were identified who posed a threat to the forces”.

A statement continued: “Contrary to reports emerging in recent hours, all of the shooting in the area was carried out for the purpose of distancing and not aimed at harm. We emphasise that as of this stage, no injuries to the suspects are known to have occurred as a result of the shooting.”

Earlier on Saturday, Muhammad Emad Al-Din was one of the thousands waiting to return home to northern Gaza.

“I know my house might be destroyed, but I’ll pitch a tent over its remains. I just want to go back,” he told the BBC over the phone.

“I need to reclaim my work. I am a barber in Gaza and I’ve been trying to figure out how to repair the damage to my salon and restart my business. I’ve become indebted to so many people and I can’t afford to buy the simplest things for my children,” he added.

“All I wish for is for this dispute between Hamas and Israel to end and for us to be allowed to move back to our homes in the north. We haven’t seen our loved ones for more than 15 months.”

Under the terms of the ceasefire agreement, Palestinians had been scheduled to be allowed to travel north of the Netzarim Corridor, a seven kilometre (4.3 miles) strip of land controlled by Israel that cuts off north Gaza from the rest of the territory.

Lubna Nassar, carrying her two daughters and son on a donkey cart, was hoping to return to her home and reunite with her husband, Sultan, whom she has not seen in 11 months.

Speaking on Saturday afternoon, she said: “I will stay here, as close as possible to the Israeli checkpoint. For months, my daughters have been waiting for the moment to meet their father. I want to be among the first to return to Gaza.”

aQatari and Egyptian mediators who have facilitated talks between Israel and Hamas have made progress in their efforts to allow hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to return to the north.

Israel had asked the mediators for proof from Hamas that Ms Yehud is alive and it appeared that had been given to the Egyptians by Saturday evening, the BBC understands.

Meanwhile, many Gazans were watching anxiously for any breakthrough that could allow them to return.

For many, the hope of returning outweighs the reality of what awaits them: ruins and destruction.

Yet the dream of reclaiming their lives, rebuilding their homes and reuniting with their families are keeping their spirits alive.

In a phone call this weekend, Mr Trump said he had told Jordan’s King Abdullah: “I’d love you to take on more, because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now and it’s a mess, it’s a real mess.” He said he planned to make a similar request to Egypt’s president on Sunday.

The move “could be temporary” or “could be long-term”, he said.

Hamas has vowed to oppose any such action, and the comments will likely outrage Palestinians in Gaza, who see the territory as their ancestral home.

“Our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip endured death and destruction for 15 months… without leaving their land. Therefore, they will not accept any offers or solutions, even if they appear to be good intentions under the title of reconstruction, as announced by US President Trump’s proposals,” Bassem Naim, a member of the Hamas political bureau, told the BBC.

“Our people, just as they have thwarted all plans for displacement and an alternative homeland over the decades, will also thwart such projects,” he added.

Most of Gaza’s two million residents have been displaced in the 15 months of war with Israel, which has flattened much of Gaza’s infrastructure.

The United Nations has previously estimated that 60% of structures across Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, and it could take decades to rebuild.

Mr Trump made his comments while speaking to reporters on board the Air Force One.

“You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,” he said.

“Almost everything is demolished and people are dying there. So I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where maybe they can live in peace for a change.”

Mr Trump did not give further details of the proposal, and the subject was not referenced in the White House’s official read out of the call.

Asked about Mr Trump’s comments, Abu Yahya Rashid, a man displaced in the southern city of Khan Younis said:

“We are the ones who decide our fate and what we want. This land is ours and the property of our ancestors throughout history. We will not leave it except as corpses.”

Decades of US foreign policy has committed to the creation of a Palestinian state, with Gaza as a key part. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects this.

The US has previously said that it opposes any forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza or the occupied West Bank, with then Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying last year: “They cannot, they must not, be pressed to leave Gaza.”

More than two million Palestinian refugees, most of whom have been granted citizenship, live in Jordan, according to the United Nations. They are descendants of some of the approximately 750,000 Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes in the conflicts surrounding the formation of Israel.

Thousands of Palestinians have fled to Egypt since the war with Israel began, but they are not recognised there as refugees.

In October 2023, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said he rejected any forced displacement of Palestinians into the Sinai peninsula, and that the only solution was an independent state for Palestinians.

Some on Israel’s far-right want to return to Gaza and establish settlements there. Israel ordered a unilateral pull out in 2005, with 21 settlements dismantled and about 9,000 settlers evacuated by the army.

The far-right former national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said he commended Mr Trump “for the initiative to transfer residents from Gaza to Jordan and Egypt.”

“One of our demands from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to promote voluntary emigration,” he wrote on X.

Mr Trump’s comments came as displaced people were delayed from returning to their homes in northern Gaza after Israel accused Hamas of breaching the terms of a ceasefire deal.

“There is nothing there – there is no life, everything is demolished. But still to return to your land, to your home is a big joy,” one man anxiously waiting told the BBC.

In separate comments on Air Force One, Mr Trump said he had ended former President Joe Biden’s hold on the supply of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel.

“They paid for them and they’ve been waiting for them for a long time,” he told reporters on Air Force One.

The US is by far the biggest supplier of arms to Israel, having helped it build one of the most technologically sophisticated militaries in the world.

But the war in Gaza led to renewed calls for the US to reduce or end arms shipments to Israel, because of the level of destruction caused by US weapons in the territory.

Foreign ministers from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar issued a joint statement on Saturday after they met in the Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba.

 They said “all political and social forces” must be represented in the new Syrian government and warned against “any ethnic, sectarian or religious discrimination” and called for “justice and equality for all citizens”.

The political process in Syria should be supported by “the United Nations and the Arab League, in accordance with the principles of Security Council Resolution 2254”, a resolution in 2015 which set out a roadmap for a negotiated settlement, the statement said.

The Arab diplomats also attended a separate meeting in Aqaba that included US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pederson and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.

That meeting also called for an inclusive and representative government that respects the rights of minorities and does not offer “a base for terrorist groups”, according to Blinken, who spoke at a news conference.

Today’s agreement sends a unified message to the new interim authority and parties in Syria on the principles crucial to securing much-needed support and recognition,” he said.

The talks come following the fall of al-Assad after a lightning offensive by the opposition group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) last week.

Rebuilding institutions and forming an inclusive Syria are key terms from the Arab diplomats which “overlap with a lot of the positions of other dignitaries in attendance today in Aqaba”, said Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Jordan’s capital, Amman.

“Nobody wants to see Syria break into several countries,” she added. “They want to see a stable Syria that can welcome back the millions of refugees, and they’re offering their support, political, financial and humanitarian.”

According to their statement, the Arab ministers said state institutions must be preserved to stop Syria from “slipping into chaos”, also calling to boost joint “efforts to combat terrorism … as it poses a threat to Syria and to the security of the region and the world”.

They also condemned “Israel’s incursion into the buffer zone with Syria”, its air strikes in Syria, and demanded “the withdrawal of Israeli forces” from Syrian territory.

Following al-Assad’s removal, a transitional government installed by the rebel forces has insisted the rights of all Syrians will be protected, as will the rule of law.

 This will be fundamental for post-al-Assad Syria to avoid past mistakes, according to Labib al-Nahhas, director of the Syrian Association for Citizens’ Dignity, which advocates for the rights of Syrian refugees.

“The key to success in such a critical phase is inclusiveness, and not handing the country back to a single party or a single person because that was the origin of the problem that we had – that was the genesis of how we got here after 50 years of dictatorship,” al-Nahhas told Al Jazeera.

“The behaviour of the Syrian population in general, and the rebels specifically, going into the cities, even going into minority areas. I think it was exemplary,” al-Nahhas said, adding that there have so far only been scattered reports about retribution or vindictive acts.

The director said the international community must play a role in safeguarding Syria’s inclusiveness process.