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Hamas freed the last surviving Israeli hostages under a ceasefire agreement on Monday, a major step towards ending the devastating two-year war. Gaza
Israel’s military said it had received confirmation from the Red Cross that all the hostages were alive following their transfer from Gaza.
This prompted thousands of people waiting at “Hostage Square” in Tel Aviv to cheer, hug and cry.
Ahead of a summit in Egypt to cement the ceasefire, some of the approximately 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees freed by Israel as part of the deal began arriving in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, some carried on the shoulders of jubilant relatives.
Trump addressed the Israeli Parliament
“The skies are calm, the guns are silent, the sirens are silent and the sun is rising on the Holy Land, where there is peace at last,” Trump said in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. He said the “long nightmare” for both Israelis and Palestinians was over.
“Now is the time to translate these victories against terrorists on the battlefield into the ultimate prize of overall peace and prosperity middle east” he said ahead of his planned visit to Egypt for the summit.
However, formidable obstacles remain in resolving even the Gaza war, let alone the broader, generations-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict or other long-running conflicts in the Middle East.
Follow-up summit to address Gaza’s future
The release of hostages and Palestinian detainees was key to the first phase of the Gaza accord reached last week in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where the summit will be held on Monday.
More than 20 world leaders will consider how to take next steps under Trump’s 20-point blueprint to end the war.
The agreement comes two years after a Hamas cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, that killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Health officials in the enclave say Israeli airstrikes, bombings and ground attacks have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, and destroyed much of the enclave.
A global hunger monitor said Gaza city and surrounding areas are suffering from famine, with more than half a million Palestinians suffering, and most of Gaza’s 2.2 million people homeless.
Trump’s plan is to allow aid supplies to flow more smoothly into the enclave. UN aid chief Tom Fletcher underlined the need to “get shelter and fuel to those who desperately need it and to massively scale up food and medicine and other supplies.”
The war has also reshaped the Middle East through Israeli conflicts with Iran, Lebanon’s Tehran-backed Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis.
Trump also raised the idea of a peace deal between Middle East archenemies Iran and Israel in the Knesset, saying he thinks Iran wants that and adding, “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Happiness and relief on both sides
Glowing with relief and joy, two of the hostages waved to the welcoming crowd from the van on the way to the Israeli hospital, one waved a large Israeli flag and then made a heart with his hands.
Video footage captured emotional scenes of families receiving phone messages from their loved ones as they were being released, their faces glowing with disbelief and hope after months of suffering.
Vicki Cohen, mother of hostage Nimrod Cohen, said, “I’m so excited. I’m filled with joy. It’s hard to imagine how I feel right now. I haven’t slept all night.”
Most liberated Palestinians were detained during the war, but the group included 250 prisoners convicted of involvement in deadly attacks or held on suspicion of security crimes.
Palestinians rush to embrace prisoners released by Israel. Several thousand people gathered in and around the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, some waving Palestinian flags, others carrying photographs of their relatives.
Fighting back tears, a woman who gave her name as Um Ahmed said she had “mixed emotions” about that day.
“I’m happy for my sons who are being freed, but we’re still in pain for all the people who died under the occupation, and the destruction that happened in our Gaza,” he told Reuters via voice note.
What are the dangers?
Washington brokered the deal with Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, with the next phase calling for an international body – a “peace board” – led by Trump.
A lot can still go wrong. Next steps have yet to be agreed upon, over which previous ceasefire efforts faltered, including how the densely populated coastal area will be controlled after the fighting ends, and the ultimate fate of Hamas.
The presence of Hamas alongside militants gathered at the Nasser hospital underlined the potential difficulty of allaying Israeli concerns about the Islamic militant group’s continued hold on Gaza, where it has ruled since 2007.
Hamas gunmen launched a security crackdown in Gaza City after Israel withdrew, killing 32 members of the rival group, a Palestinian security source said.
As he entered the Knesset, Trump said Hamas would abide by a provision under his plan to disarm, although the group has denied this would happen before the Palestinians gain statehood.
Trump’s envoys met with Hamas negotiators in Sharm el-Sheikh before agreeing to a ceasefire, a senior Palestinian official familiar with the matter said.
Further sticking points could include Israel’s own continued withdrawal from Gaza, and steps toward the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state, an outcome that many Israelis reject.
The bodies of some of the 26 dead hostages and two others whose fate is not known will also be released on Monday. A committee has been set up to locate some of the bodies lost in the Gaza debris.