Three hostages were handed over to Israeli forces — the first of 33 expected to be freed over the next six weeks in exchange for some 1,900 Palestinians. The deal follows months of negotiations.
A cease-fire between Hamas and Israel took effect Sunday, silencing the guns over Gaza and renewing hopes of a possible end to a 15-month conflict that has killed tens of thousands and edged the Middle East to all-out regional war. By late afternoon, an exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners and detainees had begun. Three hostages were handed over to Israeli forces — the first of 33 expected to be freed over the next six weeks in exchange for some 1,900 Palestinians.
For Tareq al-Batsh, a 35-year-old taxi driver from the Al-Tuffah neighborhood in Gaza city now living in a shelter in Deir al Balah, relief that the cease-fire had come to pass was tempered by the frustration of not immediately being able to see his relatives in the north. The best he could do for now was call them to celebrate. “Today’s joy feels incomplete,' he said His wife, Diana al-Batsh, 30, said the first thing she would do was travel north to hug her parents.
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