Israel’s military said three hostages held in Gaza had been handed over to its forces and returned to Israeli territory, as a long-awaited hostage and prisoner exchange deal began on Sunday after 15 months of brutal conflict.
Television footage appeared to show the three women entering a Red Cross vehicle in Gaza after exiting a pick-up truck, surrounded by a large crowd and dozens of masked and armed militants. Israel said the three were Romi Gonen, 24, Emily Damari, 28, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31, the first of dozens of captives due to be released.
The handover came hours after a six-week ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect, raising hopes of a pause — and potentially an end — to the bloodiest chapter in the decades-long history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: a war that has left Gaza in ruins, consumed Israeli society and brought the Middle East to the brink of a full-blown regional war.
As the fighting ended on Sunday, Gazans took to the streets in celebration and began returning to the ruins of their homes, while in some cities, uniformed Hamas militants and police were in evidence after months of guerrilla war. In Israel, relatives of hostages and their supporters gathered in Tel Aviv to watch live broadcasts of the first returns.
The truce, the first stage of a three-phase agreement thrashed out by US-led mediators last week after months of failed attempts, had been due to take effect early on Sunday.
But the fragile ceasefire began nearly three hours late, with Israel continuing to bomb Gaza after a delay in Hamas providing names of the hostages to be released.
Some 90 Palestinian prisoners were due to be freed later on Sunday in exchange for the hostages. The next exchange will take place in seven days’ time, with four more hostages freed.
The chances of the agreement being implemented in full remain uncertain, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu under intense pressure from far-right allies to resume fighting once the deal’s first phase is complete.
The fighting in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s shock October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, during which militants killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials, and took a further 250 hostages in the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust.
Israel responded with a devastating assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 46,000 people, according to Palestinian officials. It has displaced most of the coastal enclave’s 2.3mn people and fuelled a humanitarian catastrophe.
As the release of the first hostages neared, a crowd gathered in a Tel Aviv plaza renamed Hostage Square after Hamas’s attack. Yair Keshet, whose nephew Yarden Bibas, Yarden’s wife Shiri and their two young children are among those due to be released in the deal’s first phase, said the whole family was “waiting”.
“That’s all we can do. There’s a deal now at least. But every day is a landmine. There could be issues [that derail the deal],” he said.
In Gaza, celebrations spread before the ceasefire took effect, while many of the hundreds of thousands of displaced were preparing to return to their homes. One, Mohamed Abu Ismail, returned to Jabalia camp in the north of Gaza to find his home in ruins.
“People arrive in Jabalia, get shocked, weep and go back to Gaza City,” he said. “There is nothing to sustain life here. Even the schools that were sheltering displaced people have been burnt. All features of Jabalia have been erased, nothing is left standing.”
Mohamed Bassal, spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence agency, said its teams were starting to retrieve bodies from areas vacated by Israeli forces, while police who operated when Hamas ruled the enclave had begun redeploying in cities.
Hamas fighters also began to resurface, with footage showing armed men in cars driving in convoy through various locations in the enclave, including Rafah and Khan Younis.
Under the deal struck last week, the first phase will involve a six-week truce, during which Hamas will release 33 of 97 hostages still in Gaza — including children, women, the sick and elderly — in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinian prisoners.
During this time, displaced Palestinians will be allowed to return to their homes, Israeli troops will partially withdraw from the enclave and humanitarian aid will sharply increase.
By day 16 of the first phase, Israel and Hamas are meant to start negotiating details of the second phase, during which the remaining living hostages will be freed in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and a permanent end to the war.
The final phase will involve the return of bodies of deceased hostages and the beginning of Gaza’s reconstruction.
But in a sign of the hostility of Israel’s far-right to the deal, shortly before it took effect, far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir pulled his Jewish Power party out of the government, reducing Netanyahu’s majority in Israel’s 120-seat parliament to just two.
Ben-Gvir’s ultranationalist ally, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, has also threatened to remove his Religious Zionism party if the war does not resume after the deal’s first stage. That would deprive Netanyahu of his majority.
Smotrich said on Sunday he would topple the government if it did not resume fighting in a way that led to Israel “taking over the entire Gaza Strip and governing it”.
Netanyahu has previously denied that Israel is seeking to run Gaza after the war. But he said Saturday that the US supported Israel’s right to resume fighting if talks on the second phase failed.
He insisted Israeli forces would keep “full control” of the so-called Philadelphi corridor, which separates Gaza from Egypt. “If we have to return to combat, we will do so in new ways, and . . . with great force,” Netanyahu said.
Mike Waltz, US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser, said Washington would back Israel if Hamas reneged on the deal.
“If Hamas backs out, moves the goalpost . . . we will support Israel in doing what it has to do — number one,” Waltz said on Sunday, adding that “Hamas will never govern Gaza”.
Additional reporting by Myles McCormick