After 15 months of captivity, three Israeli hostages were released by Hamas militants in Gaza on Sunday, marking the beginning of a ceasefire agreement. The deal also saw the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. While celebrations erupted in both Israel and Palestinian territories, concerns remain over the fate of the remaining hostages still held by Hamas.
Romi Gonen, right, and her mother Merav hold each other near kibbutz Reim, southern Israel after Romi was released from captivity by Hamas militants in Gaza on Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025.
But in Israel, the joy of seeing freed hostages Emily Damari, Romi Gonen, and Doron Steinbrecher reunited with their families was tempered by major questions over the fate of the nearly 100 others abducted in Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack, still in captivity in Gaza. On Sunday, many Israelis stayed glued to TV screens all afternoon to glimpse the women being released through the windows of the Red Cross ambulance. Footage showed them thronged by thousands of jostling Palestinians, including Hamas gunmen wearing green headbands, as militants handed them over to the Red Cross on a packed street in Gaza City.
It took another seven hours for such scenes to unfold in the occupied West Bank, where the mood was initially subdued as the Israeli military warned that public celebrations for the released prisoners would be punished. A “double feeling” is how the most prominent detainee freed, Khalida Jarrar, 62, described it. Jarrar is a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a secular leftist faction that was involved in attacks against Israel in the 1970s but later scaled back militant activities. Since her arrest in late 2023, she was held under indefinitely renewable administrative detention—a widely criticized practice that Israel uses against Palestinians.
The skies above the besieged territory were free of Israeli warplanes for the first day since a weeklong ceasefire in November 2023 that freed over 100 hostages, offering Palestinians a chance to take stock of the devastation. Asher Pizem, 35, from the city of Sderot, said the deal had merely postponed Israel’s next confrontation with Hamas. He also criticized Israel for allowing aid into Gaza, saying it would contribute to the militant group’s revival.
Hamas Israel Ceasefire Hostages Palestinian Prisoners Gaza
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