TEL AVIV — Jubilant Israelis welcomed the return Sunday evening of the first wave of hostages from the Gaza Strip, hours after Israel and Hamas‘ long-awaited ceasefire went into effect and spurred many displaced Palestinians to trek home by foot after 15 months of brutal conflict.
Many hope the hard-fought reprieve will usher in a permanent end to the fighting that has left more than 46,800 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, according to local health officials, and allow the rebuilding of the enclave, much of it reduced to ruins by ferocious Israeli airstrikes and shelling.
President Joe Biden celebrated the safe return of three female hostages — the first in a coordinated effort expected to continue in the coming days — and said a ceasefire was reached due to “the pressure Israel put on Hamas backed by the United States.”
“Today, the guns in Gaza have gone silent,” Biden said in televised remarks in his final full day in office.
Hundreds of aid trucks were beginning to enter Gaza, which has seen critical infrastructure destroyed in the wake of Israel’s response to Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas led a cross-border terrorist attack that Israeli officials say killed 1,200 people and saw 251 others taken as hostages.
Gazans on Sunday took the rare opportunity to see what, if anything, was left of their homes after Israel’s blistering offensive, which destroyed or damaged most of the enclave’s buildings and displaced almost all of its 2 million residents. Amid the devastation, some celebrated in the streets to mark the beginning of the fragile truce. NBC News crews in Gaza captured large crowds of families moving near Rafah, in southern Gaza, mostly on foot.
One family was riding on a cart pulled by a donkey. “To Rafah, to Rafah, inside, in Gaza,” a smiling young boy exclaimed as he steered the cart.
Meanwhile, in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, a crowd cheered and clapped as the news came in that the hostages were in Red Cross custody just after 5 p.m. local time (10 a.m. ET) and then crossed safely into Israeli territory.
The released hostages are all young women: Doron Steinbrecher, 31, taken from kibbutz Kfar Aza on Oct. 7, a veterinary nurse; Romi Gonen, 24, taken from the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7; and Emily Damari, 28, a British Israeli citizen taken from kibbutz Kfar Aza on Oct. 7 and a key figure in the kibbutz’s youth community.
Video shared by the Israeli military showed the three women getting out of a Red Cross vehicle and smiling and hugging waiting Israeli forces. Two of them had bandaged hands. They were later reunited with their mothers in Israel — with each pair of mothers and daughters embracing — and were due to be medically examined at a hospital near Tel Aviv.
Four additional living hostages are expected to be released in seven days, the coordinator for hostages, returnees and missing persons in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said. It added that their families would be informed of the names of those to be released 24 hours prior to that date.
Biden said he anticipates at least two Americans will be released as part of this initial phase, as 33 hostages will be set free in exchange for 1,904 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
The first Americans to be released will be Keith Siegel, 65, on Day 14 of the ceasefire, and then Sagui Dekel-Chen, 36, who is injured, according to a senior administration official and a diplomatic official. The other five Americans, both alive and dead, will not be released until the second phase of the ceasefire deal, the officials said. They are expected to include a dual national, Edan Alexander, 20, whose condition is unknown.
Israel is set to release 90 Palestinian prisoners and detainees as part of the agreement, all of whom are children and women, according to the Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs. For every hostage released, 30 Palestinian prisoners will be freed — 50 if the hostage is a soldier.
Initially set for 8:30 a.m. local time, the pause in fighting was delayed by a few hours and began after 11:15 a.m. Gaza’s Civil Defense agency reported that at least 19 people were killed and 36 injured earlier after the delay was announced.
A total of 94 people seized and taken into Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, are believed to be in Hamas’ captivity, along with four people who have been held by Hamas since 2014. At least 34 of those taken hostage during the Hamas-led attacks are understood to be dead, while two of the abductees taken captive in 2014 are also dead.
The ceasefire is expected to pause more than a year of ferocious Israeli bombings, but also open the floodgates to desperately needed aid, with up to 600 trucks a day to enter the enclave, according to the World Health Organization. A shortage of food, medicine and fuel, plus deadly violence, has created a spiraling humanitarian crisis marked by widespread hunger and sickness.
If all the phases of the ceasefire go ahead as planned, it will bring relief — and possible closure — to families of the hostages trapped in the enclave under terrifying and dangerous conditions, as well as to Palestinian families whose loved ones have been detained by the Israeli military.
Negotiations over a second stage are expected to get underway by the 16th day of the first phase. Biden said Wednesday that this round would aim to bring about a “permanent end to the war,” as both the outgoing administration and President-elect Donald Trump have pressed for a resolution to the conflict ahead of Monday’s presidential inauguration.
