Ceasefire brings hope to Gaza. Freed Israeli hostage reunited with mother

Palestinians took to the streets to celebrate Sunday at their bombed-out home after a cease-fire agreement halted fighting in the Gaza Strip and three female hostages freed by Hamas were reunited with their mothers in Israel. returned to the rubble.

Armed Hamas fighters drove through the southern city of Khan Yunis as crowds cheered and shouted. In the northern part of the territory, bombed into oblivion during the war’s heaviest fighting, people picked narrow paths through a desolate landscape of rubble and twisted metal.

Aya, a displaced woman from Gaza City who has been sheltering in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip for more than a year, said: “After 15 months lost in the desert, I feel like I have finally found drinking water.” I will,” he said. After the battle ended, he said: “I feel like I’m alive again.”

In Tel Aviv, hundreds of Israelis in a square outside the defense headquarters watched live broadcast from Gaza showing the release of the hostages on a giant screen. Crowds cheered, hugged and cried as three female hostages were seen boarding a Red Cross vehicle surrounded by armed Hamas fighters.

Shortly after, the Israeli military arrested Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher, and Emily Damari in a raid inside Israel near the kibbutz and a nearby music festival where they were abducted in a Hamas raid on October 7, 2023. At the meeting place, he announced that he was reunited with his mother. That’s what caused the war.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a bus was waiting for the release of Palestinian prisoners of war from Israeli custody. Hamas said the first group of hostages to be released in exchange would include 69 women and 21 teenage boys.

The first phase of a cease-fire in the 15-month-old war between Israel and Hamas took effect after a three-hour delay in the assault on the Gaza Strip by Israeli warplanes and artillery.

A last-minute Israeli airstrike killed 13 people, according to Palestinian health authorities. Israel accused Hamas of delaying delivering the names of hostages scheduled for release and said it had attacked terrorists. Hamas said the delay in providing the list was a technical glitch.

“Today, the guns in Gaza fell silent,” US President Joe Biden said on his last full day in office, welcoming a ceasefire that US diplomacy has avoided for more than a year.

“The road to this agreement was not easy, and it was a long road,” Biden said. “But we have reached this point today because of the pressure that Israel, with the support of the United States, has built on Hamas.”

The cease-fire agreement calls for a cessation of fighting and the sending of aid to Gaza, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons and Israelis still held in Gaza. Thirty-three of the 98 foreign hostages are expected to be released in the first six weeks.

For Hamas, the ceasefire could be an opportunity to emerge from the shadows after 15 months in hiding. Hamas police officers in blue police uniforms were quickly deployed to some areas.

People who had gathered to support the fighters chanted “Say hello to the armed forces, Al-Qassam Brigades.”

“Despite (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu, all resistance forces remain,” one fighter told Reuters. “This is a complete and comprehensive ceasefire by God’s will, with no return to war despite God’s will.”

The ceasefire agreement comes into effect on the eve of the inauguration of the next U.S. president, after months of on-again, off-again negotiations mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the United States. The hostages were released before he took office.

There is no detailed plan for governing Gaza after the war, much less rebuilding it. If Hamas regains control of the Gaza Strip, Israel’s commitment to a ceasefire will be tested. Israel has said it will resume war unless the extremist group that has run the enclave since 2007 is completely dismantled.

Hardline National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir resigned from his cabinet on Sunday over the ceasefire, but said his party would not seek to overthrow Netanyahu’s government. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the other most prominent hardliner, has said he will remain in the government for now but will resign if the war ends without Hamas being completely destroyed.

Mike Walz, Trump’s nominee for national security adviser, said the United States would help Israel “do what needs to be done” if Hamas abandons the deal.

“Hamas will never rule Gaza. That is completely unacceptable.”

The streets of shattered Gaza City in the northern part of the territory were already buzzing with groups of people waving Palestinian flags and filming the scene on cellphones. Several carts loaded with household belongings drove down a main street strewn with rubble and rubble.

Ahmed Abu Ayham, 40, a Gaza City resident who has taken refuge with his family in Khan Yunis, said the ceasefire may have saved his life, but given the loss of life and the scale of the destruction, he was reluctant to celebrate. He said he didn’t have time.

“We are in pain, deep pain. It’s time to hug each other and cry,” he said.

In the hours leading up to the ceasefire, long lines of trucks filled with fuel and aid formed at border crossings. The World Food Program announced the crossing began Sunday morning.

The agreement calls for 600 truckloads of aid to be brought into Gaza each day during the first six-week ceasefire, including 50 trucks of fuel. Half of the 600 aid trucks will be delivered to northern Gaza, where experts have warned famine is imminent.

The war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7, 2023, after militants attacked Israeli towns and villages, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages.

More than 47,000 Palestinians have since been killed in the Israeli offensive, which turned the Gaza Strip into a wasteland, according to medical officials in the enclave. Almost all of the enclave’s 2.3 million people are homeless. Approximately 400 Israeli soldiers were also killed.