On Sunday, Hamas released three Israeli hostages and Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners. It was the primary day of a ceasefire that suspended a 15-month war that has devastated the Gaza Strip and inflamed the Middle East.
The ceasefire allowed Palestinians to return to bombed-out neighborhoods to start rebuilding their lives, while aid trucks delivered much-needed aid. Elsewhere in Gaza, crowds cheered Hamas fighters as they emerged from hiding.
As buses carrying the Palestinian prisoners arrived in Ramallah within the West Bank, where hundreds of individuals were waiting to welcome them, fireworks were set off in celebration. Those released from Israeli prisons included 69 women and 21 teenagers from the West Bank and Jerusalem, based on Hamas.
In Tel Aviv, a whole lot of Israelis cheered and cried in a square outside the defense headquarters as a live broadcast from Gaza showed three female hostages entering into a Red Cross vehicle surrounded by Hamas fighters.
The Israeli military said Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari had been reunited with their moms and released a video that appeared to indicate them in good health. Damari, who lost two fingers when she was shot the day she was abducted, smiled and hugged her mother while holding up a bandaged hand.
“I want you to tell them: Romi, Doron and Emily – an entire nation embraces you. Welcome home,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a commander on the phone.
At Sheba Medical Center, the ladies were reunited with their families in long hugs that ranged from tears to laughter. A smiling Damari was draped in an Israeli flag. They were amongst greater than 250 people kidnapped and 1,200 killed in a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Israel said.
More than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since then, based on medical officials in Gaza. Almost all of Gaza's 2.3 million population is homeless. Around 400 Israeli soldiers also died.
The ceasefire calls for an end to the fighting, the sending of aid to Gaza and the discharge of 33 of the nearly 100 remaining Israeli and foreign hostages within the six-week first phase in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons. Many of the hostages are presumed dead. In northern Gaza, Palestinians made their way through a devastated landscape of rubble and twisted metal that had been forgotten through the fiercest fighting of the war.
“I feel like I have finally found some water to drink after being lost in the desert for 15 months,” said Aya, who said she has been displaced from her home in Gaza City for greater than a yr been.
The first phase of the ceasefire got here into force after a three-hour delay during which Israeli warplanes and artillery bombarded the Gaza Strip.
According to Palestinian health authorities, 13 people were killed on this last-minute attack. Israel accused Hamas of delaying in releasing the names of the hostages it sought to free and said it had attacked terrorists. Hamas said the delay in providing the list was technical. “Today the guns in Gaza have fallen silent,” US President Joe Biden said on his last full day in office, hailing a ceasefire that had eluded US diplomacy for greater than a yr. “We have reached this point today because Israel, with the support of the United States, has been building pressure on Hamas.”
For Hamas, the ceasefire was a possibility to emerge from the shadows after 15 months of obscurity. Hamas law enforcement officials in blue police uniforms deployed quickly in some areas, and armed fighters drove through the southern town of Khan Younis, where a crowd cheered “Greetings to the Al-Qassam Brigades,” the group's armed wing.
“All resistance groups remain despite Netanyahu,” one fighter told Reuters.
Trump advisor: “Hamas will never rule Gaza”
There isn’t any detailed plan for governing Gaza after the war, let alone rebuilding it. Any return of Hamas will test the patience of Israel, which has said it can resume fighting unless the militant group is totally dismantled.
Hardline National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir resigned from the Cabinet over the ceasefire, although his party said it might not attempt to topple Netanyahu's government. The other most distinguished hardliner, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, remained in government but said he would quit if the war ended without the whole destruction of Hamas.
The ceasefire got here into effect on the eve of US President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration on Monday. Trump's designated national security adviser, Mike Waltz, said that if Hamas broke the deal, the United States would support Israel in “doing what it needs to do.”
“Hamas will never rule Gaza. This is completely unacceptable,” he said.
The streets of devastated Gaza City were already teeming with groups of individuals waving the Palestinian flag and filming the scenes with their cellphones. Several carts loaded with home goods moved down a thoroughfare suffering from rubble and debris.
Ahmed Abu Ayham, 40, from Gaza City said that while the ceasefire had saved lives, the casualties and destruction were no cause for celebration.
“We are in pain, deep pain and it is time to hug each other and cry,” he said.
image credit : www.cnbc.com