Hamas freed the last living Israeli hostages on Monday under a ceasefire deal, a big step towards ending two years of ruinous war in Gaza as US president Donald Trump addressed Israel’s parliament, urging it to turn military success into peace.
Mr Trump then travelled to Egypt to address a summit, where the ceasefire was expected to be cemented.
The Israeli military said it had received all hostages confirmed to be alive after their transfer from Gaza by the Red Cross, prompting cheering, hugging and weeping among thousands waiting at “Hostage Square” in Tel Aviv.
Some of the nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees freed by Israel as part of the accord, ahead of a summit in Egypt to cement the ceasefire, began arriving in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, some hoisted on the shoulders of delighted relatives.
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“The skies are calm, the guns are silent, the sirens are still and the sun rises on a Holy Land that is finally at peace,” Mr Trump told the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, saying a “long nightmare” for both Israelis and Palestinians was over.
“Now it is time to translate these victories against terrorists on the battlefield into the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East,” he said before his planned trip to Egypt for the summit.
However, formidable obstacles remain even to a resolution of the Gaza conflagration, let alone to the wider, generations-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict or other long-standing schisms running through the Middle East.
The release of hostages and Palestinian detainees was pivotal to the first phase of the Gaza accord concluded last week in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where Monday’s summit will take place.
More than 20 world leaders will weigh how to carry out the next steps under Mr Trump’s 20-point blueprint for an end to the war.
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The deal came two years after the October 7th, 2023 cross-border Hamas assault that killed 1,200 people with 251 taken hostage, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Israeli air strikes, bombardments and ground offensives have since killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, the enclave’s health officials say, and laid waste to much of Gaza.
A global hunger monitor said Gaza City and surrounding areas are suffering from a famine afflicting more than half a million Palestinians, and most of Gaza’s 2.2 million people are homeless.
Aid supplies are meant to flow more smoothly into the enclave under Mr Trump’s plan. UN aid chief Tom Fletcher underlined the need to “get shelter and fuel to people who desperately need it and to massively scale up the food and medicine and other supplies going in.”
The war has also reshaped the Middle East through spillover Israeli conflicts with Iran, Lebanon’s Tehran-backed Hizbullah and Yemen’s Houthis.
Mr Trump also floated the idea of a peace deal between arch Middle East enemies Iran and Israel to the Knesset, saying he thought Iran wanted one and adding, “Wouldn’t it be nice?”
Beaming with relief and joy, two hostages waved to cheering crowds from vans on the way to an Israeli hospital, one hoisting a large Israeli flag then forming 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 lighting up with disbelief and hope after months of anguish.
“I am so excited. I am full of happiness. It’s hard to imagine how I feel this moment. I didn’t sleep all night,” said Viki Cohen, mother of hostage Nimrod Cohen, as she travelled to Reim, an Israeli military camp where hostages were being transferred.
Most of the freed Palestinians were detained during the war, but the group included 250 prisoners convicted of involvement in deadly attacks or held under suspicion of security offences.
Palestinians rushed to embrace prisoners freed by Israel. Several thousand gathered inside and around Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, some waving Palestinian flags, others holding photos of their relatives.
Fighting back tears, one woman who asked to be identified as Um Ahmed said she had said “mixed feelings” about the day.
“I am happy for our sons who are being freed, but we are still in pain for all the those who had been killed by the occupation, and all the destruction that happened to our Gaza,” she told Reuters by voice note.
Washington mediated the agreement along with Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, with the next phase calling for an international body – a “Board of Peace” – led by Mr Trump.
Much could still go wrong. Further steps over which previous truce efforts stumbled have yet to be agreed, including how the densely populated coastal territory will be governed once fighting ends, and the ultimate fate of Hamas.
Hamas’ appearance with militants gathered at Nasser Hospital underscored the likely difficulty of assuaging Israeli concerns about the Islamist militant group’s continued hold over Gaza, where it has ruled since 2007.
Hamas gunmen launched a security crackdown in Gaza City after Israel’s pullback, killing 32 members of a rival group, a Palestinian security source said.
As he entered the Knesset, Mr Trump said Hamas would comply with a provision under his plan for it to disarm, although the group has ruled this out before Palestinians achieve statehood.
Mr Trump’s envoys met Hamas negotiators in Sharm el-Sheikh before the ceasefire was agreed, a senior Palestinian official familiar with the matter said.
Further sticking points may include Israel’s own continued withdrawal from Gaza, and moves towards the creation of an adjacent Palestinian state, an outcome many Israelis reject.
Bodies of some of the 26 confirmed dead hostages, and another two whose fate was unknown, will also be released on Monday. A committee has been established to locate some bodies likely lost in the wreckage of Gaza. – Reuters
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