Handover of 3 Israeli hostages in progress with the beginning of the cease-fire in Gaza
Israeli television showed images of the three hostages being handed over to the Red Cross as part of a ceasefire agreement that pauses a 15-month war that has brought destruction and seismic political change to the Middle East.
The Israeli military said the hostages, who have been held by Hamas militants since October 7, 2023, were heading toward the Israeli Defense Forces and Shin Bet security officials in Gaza.
The Red Cross said the hostages are in good health. A large crowd gathered in a public square in Tel Aviv, Israel, to watch a screen showing scenes of the transfer in Gaza City.
This is the latest news. A previous version of the story follows below.
A cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip took effect Sunday after a nearly three-hour delay, pausing a 15-month war that has brought destruction and seismic political change to the Middle East.
Residents and a medical worker in Gaza said they had not heard any new fighting or military attacks since about half an hour before it was finally carried out.
Israeli air and artillery strikes killed 13 Palestinians between 8:30 a.m. local time, when the 42-day ceasefire was supposed to begin, and 11:15 a.m. local time, when it actually took effect, Palestinian medics said.
Israel blamed Hamas for the delay after the Palestinian militant group failed to provide a list of the names of the first three hostages to be released under the deal.
Hamas attributed the delay to “technical field reasons”, without specifying what those were.
A Palestinian official familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the delay occurred because mediators had sought 48 hours of “quiet” before implementing the ceasefire, but continued Israeli strikes until the deadline made it difficult to send the list.
Two hours after the deadline, Hamas said it had sent a list of names, and Israeli officials confirmed receipt. Hamas named the hostages it was supposed to release on Sunday as Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari.
Israel did not immediately confirm the names. However, one of the groups representing the families of the hostages in Gaza, the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, said it welcomed the news of their expected release and released brief profiles of the three women.
Steinbrecher, 31, and Damari, a 28-year-old Israeli-British dual national, were taken from their homes to Kibbutz Kfar Aza in southern Israel. Gonen, 24, who is from the city of Kfar Vradim in northern Israel, was abducted from the Nova music festival in the desert near the Gaza-Israel border.
Canadian Maureen Leshem talks to The National about anticipating the release of her cousin, Romi Gonen, who was kidnapped by Hamas from the Nova Music Festival in Israel on October 7, 2023.
The long-awaited ceasefire deal could help end the war, which began after Hamas, which controls Gaza, attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities. Another 400 Israeli soldiers have been killed in fighting in Gaza, Israel says.
The Israeli response reduced much of Gaza to rubble and killed nearly 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
The war also set off a conflict across the Middle East between Israel and its arch-enemy Iran, which backs Hamas and other anti-Israel and anti-US paramilitary forces across the region.
Israeli military spokesmen said in separate statements Sunday that its planes and artillery had struck “terrorist targets” in northern and central Gaza, and that the military would continue to attack the strip until Hamas fulfilled its ceasefire obligations.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said at least 13 people were killed in the Israeli attacks and dozens were wounded. Medics reported tank fire on the Zeitoun area of Gaza City and said airstrikes and tank fire also hit the northern town of Beit Hanoun, causing residents who had returned there in anticipation of a ceasefire to flee.
An air raid siren that went off in the Sderot area of southern Israel was a false alarm, the Israeli military said in a separate statement.
Aid is arriving, Palestinians are returning home
Israeli forces began withdrawing from Gaza’s Rafah area to the Philadelphia Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border, pro-Hamas media reported early Sunday.
Long lines of trucks carrying fuel and aid were waiting at border crossings for several hours before the ceasefire was due to take effect. The World Food Program said its trucks began crossing on Sunday morning.
The deal calls for 600 aid trucks to be allowed into Gaza each day of the initial six-week ceasefire, including 50 fuel trucks. Half of the 600 aid trucks will be delivered to northern Gaza, where experts warn famine is imminent.
Palestinians displaced by the fighting could be seen returning to Rafah in southern Gaza, including 26-year-old Mohamed Abd.
“I want to see my home; it’s all dusty,” he told CBC News. “We were in misery for a year and three months and we were humiliated and displaced, not in one but in 10 places.
The three-phase ceasefire agreement followed months of negotiations brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the United States, and came shortly before the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump on January 20.
Its first phase will last six weeks, during which 33 of the remaining 98 hostages — women, children, men over 50, sick and wounded — will be released in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
They include 737 prisoners, women and teenagers, some of whom are members of militant groups convicted of attacks that have killed dozens of Israelis, as well as hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza in detention since the war began.
The first phase of the cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas involves the release of 33 Israeli hostages, including all women, children and men over the age of 50, in exchange for approximately 1,900 Palestinian prisoners. Efrat Machikawa, the niece of 80-year-old Israeli hostage Gadi Moses, says her uncle will be part of this first phase, but the date of his return and current state of health are unclear. Machikawa says she is glad ‘for the end of suffering’ and hopes Moses’ 14 grandchildren will see him again.
Hamas is ready to release the first three female hostages as part of the deal, the Red Cross said, in exchange for the planned release of 90 Palestinian prisoners.
Guards could be seen standing outside the Sheba Medical Center, also known as Tel HaShomer Hospital, where the hostages are expected to be evaluated, in Ramat Gan, on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.
Under the terms of the deal, Hamas will inform the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) where the Gaza meeting will be and the ICRC is expected to begin driving to that location to pick up the hostages, an official involved in the process told Reuters.
US President Joe Biden’s team worked closely with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to push the deal.
As his inauguration approaches, Trump has reiterated his demand that a deal be reached quickly, warning repeatedly that there will be “hell to pay” if the hostages are not released.
But what will come next in Gaza remains unclear in the absence of a comprehensive agreement on the enclave’s post-war future, which will require billions of dollars and years of work to rebuild.
And although the declared goal of the truce is a complete end to the war, it could easily unravel.
Hamas, which controlled Gaza for nearly two decades, survived despite losing its top leadership and thousands of fighters.
Israel has vowed not to allow Hamas to return to power and has cleared large swathes of land inside Gaza, in a move widely seen as a move to create a buffer zone that will allow its troops to operate freely against threats in the enclave.
In Israel, the return of the hostages could ease public anger against Netanyahu and his right-wing government over the Oct. 7 security lapse that led to the deadliest day in the country’s history.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised address on Saturday that his government is treating the ceasefire with Hamas as temporary and reserves the ‘right to return to the fight.’
The war sent shockwaves across the region, sparking a conflict with Lebanon’s Tehran-backed Hezbollah movement and bringing Israel into direct conflict with its archenemy Iran for the first time.
It also transformed the Middle East. Iran, which has spent billions building a network of militant groups around Israel, saw its “Axis of Resistance” destroyed and was unable to inflict more than minimal damage on Israel in two major missile attacks.
Hezbollah, whose vast missile arsenal was once considered the greatest threat to Israel, has seen the death of its top leadership and the destruction of most of its missiles and military infrastructure.
Diplomatically, Israel has faced anger and isolation over the death and destruction in Gaza.
Netanyahu is facing the International Criminal Court warrant on charges of war crimes and separate charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice.
Israel reacted furiously to both cases, dismissing the charges as politically motivated and accusing South Africa, which brought the original case to the ICJ as well as countries that joined it, of anti-Semitism.
