The first three hostages were released from Gaza and the first Palestinian prisoners were freed from Israeli custody as the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took hold following 15 months …
Demonstrators hold portraits of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip during a protest calling for their immediate release in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday Jan. 18, 2025. Palestinians build a tent at the Mawasi camp in Khan Younis, central Gaza Strip, Saturday Jan. 18, 2025.
A view of a tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025. Majida Abu Jarad packs belongings as she prepares to go back to the family’s home in the north, at a camp for displaced Palestinians in the Muwasi area, southern Gaza Strip, Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025. Demonstrators hold portraits of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip during a protest calling for their immediate release in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday Jan. 18, 2025. three Israeli hostages
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’ Oct. 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.
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