All 20 living hostages held by Hamas and thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel walked free yesterday as part of a ceasefire pausing two years of war that decimated the Gaza Strip and killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.
The first seven hostages were transferred by Hamas into the care of Red Cross personnel, then handed over to the IDF while Palestinians gathered at a hospital in Gaza where buses brought home some of the nearly 2000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees to be freed by Israel as part of the peace agreement.
World leaders threw their support behind a Middle East “peace deal” brokered by the US and President Donald Trump as they gathered for a summit on postwar Gaza in Egypt.
In a speech to the Israeli parliament, Trump staked his claim as a great global peacemaker, congratulated Israel for winning the war against Hamas and foreshadowed a deal with Iran.
Thousands of Palestinians have returned to Gaza City in a procession of trucks, donkeys, carts and families on foot who travelled north.
Many are returning to suburbs razed by Israel over the past two years of war, which includes an intensified bombardment of the city in the final months of the war that forced about 700,000 people in September to flee, according to the Israeli military.
