Monday, October 13, 2025 - Hamas freed the last 20 surviving Israeli hostages on Monday under a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal, a big step towards ending two years of shattering war in Gaza as President Donald Trump proclaimed the "historic dawn of a new Middle East".
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.
Buses carrying
Palestinians released from Israeli prisons as part of the accord also arrived
in Gaza, an official involved in the operation told Reuters.
"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," Trump was due to tell the Knesset in a speech before
flying on to Egypt for a summit aimed at building conditions for a lasting
peace in Gaza.
However, major obstacles
remain even to a lasting resolution of the conflict in Gaza, let alone to the
wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict or other major schisms running through the
long-volatile Middle East.
The release of hostages
and the freeing of Palestinian detainees form a critical aspect of the first
phase of the ceasefire accord concluded last week in the Egyptian resort of
Sharm el-Sheikh where Monday's summit will take place.
Over 20 world leaders
will weigh next steps under Trump's 20-point plan aimed at securing a lasting
peace after two years of war that began with the October 7, 2023 cross-border
Hamas attack that killed around 1,200 people with 251 taken hostage.
Israeli airstrikes,
bombardments and armored ground assaults have since devastated Gaza, killing
more than 67,000 Palestinians, the enclave's health officials say, and laying
waste to much of the enclave, causing a humanitarian disaster.
Initial photographs of
six of the freed Israeli hostages distributed by the Israeli military showed
them standing, some smiling and talking with soldiers who were receiving them.
As he flew from Gaza on
an Israeli helicopter, released hostage Guy Gilboa-Dalal wrote on a whiteboard:
"I have returned - the people of Israel live", according to a
photograph shown on Israeli television.
"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 the hostages were being transferred.
In Gaza, about a dozen
masked and black-clad gunmen, apparently members of Hamas' armed wing, arrived
at Nasser Hospital where a stage and chairs had been laid out to welcome
returning Palestinian prisoners.
"I hope that these
images can be the end to this war. We lost friends and relatives, we lost our
houses and our city," said Emad Abu Joudat, 57, a Palestinian father of
six from Gaza City as he watched the handover preparations on his phone.
The Trump administration
mediated the agreement along with Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, with the next phase
calling for an international body - a "Board of Peace" - led by
Trump.
However, much could still
go wrong: Further steps over which previous truce efforts stumbled have yet to
be agreed. Those include how the densely populated coastal territory will be
governed once fighting ends, and the ultimate fate of Hamas.
The group's appearance on
Monday with fighters gathered at Nasser Hospital underscored the likely
difficulty of assuaging Israeli concerns about the Islamist group's continued
hold over Gaza, where it has ruled since 2007.
Hamas militants killed 32
members of what it called a "gang" in Gaza City during a security
crackdown launched after Israeli forces pulled back under the ceasefire, a
Palestinian security source said on Monday.
As he entered the Israeli
Knesset (parliament), Trump said Palestinian militant group Hamas would comply
with a provision under his plan for it to disarm.
Further sticking points
may include Israel's own continued withdrawal from the Gaza Strip beyond the
lines to which it pulled back in recent days, and moves towards the creation of
a Palestinian state, something rejected by many Israelis.
Trump will become only
the fourth U.S. president to address the Knesset, following Jimmy Carter in
1979, Bill Clinton in 1994 and George W. Bush in 2008.
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 and disorder of Gaza.
Dozens of buses carrying
some of the nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees being freed from Israeli prisons
as part of the deal arrived in Gaza.
Most were detainees taken
by Israeli forces during the war in Gaza but the group included 250 prisoners
convicted of involvement in deadly attacks or held under suspicion of such
security offences.
Two years of war have
reduced Gaza to a sea of rubble, with nearly all its 2.2 million people
homeless. It has also reshaped the Middle East through spillover Israeli
conflicts with Iran, Lebanon's Tehran-backed Hezbollah and Yemen's Houthis.
U.N. aid chief Tom
Fletcher said on X that Israel had approved the delivery of more emergency
supplies and the main U.N. aid agency working in Gaza, UNRWA, urged Israel to
let it work unhindered in the territory.
0 Comments