GAZA: Three Israeli hostages were reunited with their mothers and Palestinians returned to their bombed-out neighborhoods on Sunday (Jan 19) with the start of a ceasefire that ended a 15-month war that has ravaged Gaza and ignited the Middle East. In Tel Aviv, hundreds of Israelis cheered and cried in the square outside the defense headquarters as a live broadcast from Gaza showed the three hostages getting into a Red Cross vehicle surrounded by Hamas fighters. The Israeli military said Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari were reunited with their mothers and released a video showing them apparently in good health. Damari, who lost two fingers when she was shot the day she was kidnapped, smiled and hugged her mother as she raised her bandaged hand. “I would like you to tell them: Romi, Doron and Emily – the whole nation embraces you. Welcome home,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the commander by phone. Sheba Medical Center said the condition of all three women is stable. They were among more than 250 people kidnapped and 1,200 killed in a Hamas airstrike on Israel on October 7, 2023, Israel said. According to doctors in Gaza, more than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since then. Almost all of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are homeless. About 400 Israeli soldiers also died. The truce calls for an end to fighting, the sending of aid to Gaza and the release of 33 of the nearly 100 remaining Israeli and foreign hostages during a six-week first phase in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Many of the hostages are presumed dead. The Israeli Prison Service announced early Monday that 90 Palestinian prisoners had been released as part of the deal. “All terrorists have been released from Ofer Prison and the Jerusalem Detention Center,” the service said, referring to the Palestinian prisoners, in a statement issued just before 1:30 p.m. In the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinians cut their way through a devastated landscape of rubble and twisted metal that was bombed into oblivion in the most intense fighting of the war. “I feel like I finally found some water to drink after being lost in the desert for 15 months,” said Aya, who said she had been displaced from her home in Gaza City for more than a year. In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, buses were waiting for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli custody. Hamas said the first group to be freed in a hostage exchange were 69 women and 21 teenage boys. The first phase of the ceasefire came into effect after a three-hour delay during which Israeli warplanes and artillery pounded the Gaza Strip. A last-minute lightning strike killed 13 people, Palestinian health authorities said. Israel accused Hamas of being late in supplying the names of the hostages it freed, saying it had targeted terrorists. Hamas said the delay in providing the list was technical. “The guns fell silent in Gaza today,” US President Joe Biden said during his last full day in office, celebrating a ceasefire that had eluded US diplomacy for more than a year. “It’s been a long road,” Biden said. “But we have reached this point today because of the pressure that Israel has put on the US-backed Hamas.” For Hamas, the ceasefire could provide an opportunity to emerge from the shadows after 15 months in hiding. Hamas police in blue police uniforms were quickly deployed in some areas and armed fighters drove through the southern town of Khan Younis, where crowds chanted: “Hail to the Al-Qassam Brigades”, the group’s armed wing. “All the resistance factions remain despite Netanyahu,” one fighter told Reuters. TRUMP AIDE: “HAMAS WILL NEVER RULE GAZA” There is no detailed plan for the administration of Gaza after the war, let alone its reconstruction. Any resumption of Hamas control in Gaza will test the patience of Israel, which has said it will resume war unless the militant group, which has ruled the enclave since 2007, is completely dismantled. Hardline National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir quit the cabinet on Sunday over the truce, although his party said it would not try to topple Netanyahu’s government. The second most prominent hardliner, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, has remained in the government for now, but has said he will step down if the war ends without the complete destruction of Hamas. The ceasefire came into force on the eve of the inauguration of the newly elected US President Donald Trump on Monday. Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz said the US would support Israel “in what it needs to do” if Hamas violates the deal. “Hamas will never rule Gaza. This is totally unacceptable.” The streets of the shattered city of Gaza in the north of the territory were already bustling with groups of people waving the Palestinian flag and filming the scenes on mobile phones. Several carts loaded with household goods drove along the thoroughfare littered with rubble and debris. Gaza City resident Ahmed Abu Ayham, 40, who is sheltering with his family in Khan Younis, said that while the ceasefire may have saved lives, the loss of life and the scale of the destruction left no time for celebration. “We feel pain, deep pain, and it’s time to hug each other and cry,” he said. In a pocket of Rafah that was relatively unscathed, Ahmed Abou Mohsen, 20, and his family returned to their abandoned home and unpacked bags of clothes, jerry cans and mattresses from an open-top truck. “It’s an indescribable feeling, absolute joy,” he said, adding that neighbors whose homes were destroyed did not share their happiness.
