Cheers and cries as Israelis watch Gaza hostages return From Reuters

By Avi (JO:) Ohio

SDEROT, Israel (Reuters) – Hundreds of Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv’s hostage square, some cheering and others in tears, as a giant television screen broadcast the first glimpse of the first three hostages to be freed under the Gaza ceasefire agreement.

They watched as the three women – Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari – got out of a car in Gaza City and were handed over to Red Cross officials amid a growing crowd that had been held back by gunmen from Hamas.

The Israeli military shared a video showing their families gathered in what appeared to be a military facility screaming with emotion as they watched footage of the handover to Israeli forces in Gaza before they were taken to Israel.

“His return today represents a beacon of light in the darkness, a moment of hope and triumph of the human spirit,” said the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, a group that represents some families of hostages.

The release of the three women, the first of 33 hostages to be released from Gaza in the first phase of the deal, is in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons.

The hostages were taken in one of the most traumatic episodes in Israel’s history, when Hamas gunmen attacked a chain of communities around the Gaza Strip in the hours of October 7, 2023 , killing about 1,200 civilians and soldiers and kidnapping 251 hostages – men. , women, children and the elderly.

But amid hopes among many Israelis that the six-week ceasefire marks the beginning of the end of the war, there is deep unease about the uncertainty surrounding the 94 remaining hostages still being held in the Strip of Gaza.

“The ceasefire is something I hope will work,” said Tomer Mizrahi, in Sderot, a town in southern Israel overlooking Gaza that was attacked on October 7. “But as I know Hamas, you can’t even trust them one. percent.”

Images of Hamas police emerging on the streets as the ceasefire came into effect underlined how far Israel has fallen from its initially stated war aims of destroying the Islamist group that has ruled Gaza since 2007.

“I’m torn,” said Dafna Sharabi from Beit Aryeh-Ofarim, a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank. “On the one hand there is a ceasefire to strengthen the forces, to rest from all the madness, on the other, maybe it’s not the time,” he said.

“They should have been removed, removed,” he said. “My son was in reserve service for a year here, a whole year, and he sees all the Gazans returning, Hamas returning its forces to all the places where it fought.”

MEN OF MILITARY AGE NOT IN BUSINESS

After 15 months of war, Gaza is largely in ruins. Israel’s campaign has killed nearly 47,000 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry and displaced most of the two million people who live in the enclave.

But for many in Israel, the war will not be over while Hamas is still standing and there have been a series of demonstrations opposing the ceasefire as well as a sale that leaves military-aged men taken prisoners, who are not in the first batch of 33. hostages.

The Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has already resigned and his fellow hardliner Bezalel Smotrich also opposed the agreement and said he was assured that it is not the end of the war.

The Israel Democracy Institute said its latest Israeli Voice Index, conducted shortly before the accord, found 57.5% of Israelis in favor of a comprehensive deal that sees all the hostages return to end the war. An additional 12% support a partial release of hostages in exchange for a temporary ceasefire.

Amidst the mix of emotions, for some, a sense of exhaustion outweighed any concern for the future.

“We have been waiting for this for a long time. We want it to be an absolute victory, I hope we will get that absolute victory, if not now then later,” said Shlomi Elkayam who owns a business in Sderot. “There are pros and cons, but in the end we are tired of everything. We are tired and we all want to be here at home.”