US security contractors have been hired to help return displaced Palestinians to the devastated northern Gaza Strip, the next step in a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas, according to four officials familiar with the matter.

The contractors are ready to help secure the key zone that bisects Gaza and is known as the Netzarim Corridor, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Contractors intend to inspect vehicles transporting Palestinians from the enclave’s south for weapons, officials said.

In the first days of the war, the Israeli army ordered a mass evacuation of northern Gaza, forcing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee south. For months, Israeli soldiers patrolled part of the Netzarim corridor to prevent Palestinians from returning to the north.

But under the terms of a 42-day ceasefire now in its fifth day, Israeli troops were to withdraw partially over the weekend and allow Gazans to head north. The truce, which took effect on Sunday, was brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has said for months that Israel will not allow armed fighters to return to the northern Gaza Strip. Mediators sought to find a compromise between Israel’s security demands and Hamas’ conditions for an Israeli withdrawal.

Gazans traveling on foot will be allowed to return without inspection, according to a copy of one of the cease-fire annexes shared by The New York Times. According to the agreement, private contractors are scheduled to begin checking Gaza vehicles heading north as early as Saturday.

But it was unclear when the mechanism would take effect, and two officials said it could take several weeks.

One of the companies assigned to the corridor is Safe Reach Solutions, which handles logistics and planning, according to a company spokesman, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive operations.

Safe Reach Solutions will oversee the operational management of the crossings, said another person familiar with its work, while two other companies – one American and one Egyptian – will carry out the actual inspections. It is not yet clear who will finance the hiring of the contractor.

The company’s website, which appears to have been registered in 2024 and created in 2025, contains almost no concrete information about the organization’s activities, funding or staff members. The company also appears to have social media accounts on Instagram and Threads, but both are empty.

American officials have not visited the Gaza Strip for years, both for security reasons and because of the official policy of no contact with Hamas, the enclave’s de facto rulers.

Many of the more than a million displaced people from Gaza have crowded into an Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone” along the southern coast in Al-Mawasi. Most of them lived in squalid tent camps where finding enough food, clean water and protection from the elements is a daily struggle.

For months, they had hoped to return to their homes in the north – although it is unclear how many of those homes are still standing amid Israel’s relentless campaign against Hamas.

“At the very least, I will pitch a tent in the rubble,” said Bilal Kuheil, a resident of Gaza City who said his house was destroyed in the first days of the war.

Israel hopes that the private security forces will eventually form the core of a larger international force, backed by Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to govern Gaza in the future, two officials said. The Emiratis and Saudis are not currently involved, they added.

But after the ceasefire, Hamas, which led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that started the war, reasserted itself, sending its fighters to parade through the streets of Gaza in a show of force. The images have dashed Israel’s hopes of crushing the militant group, despite a 15-month war in Gaza that has killed more than 45,000 people, according to Gaza health officials.

Aric Toler and Riley Mellen contributed reporting.