Israelis and Palestinians celebrate as truce brings hope of ‘era of peace’ | Israel-Gaza war

There was a rare moment of jubilation between Israelis and Palestinians on Monday when Hamas released 20 remaining live hostages in Gaza as part of a swap deal for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, on a day when world leaders met in Egypt to ensure the current limited ceasefire is transformed into a lasting peace.

Speaking at the summit, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi called for a ceasefire in Gaza to begin a new era in the Middle East. Amid widespread concerns about how long the current ceasefire will last, the president said, “Let the Gaza war be the last of the wars in the region.”

In Tel Aviv, an estimated 65,000 Israelis gathered in the “hostages square” and cheered as the military helicopter carrying 20 freed Israelis flew over the crowd en route to a nearby hospital. Live footage of their release and family reunion was broadcast on large screens in the square. The Plaza has been the center of the national campaign for their release since 250 Israelis were kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, in a Hamas surprise attack on southern Israeli communities that killed 1,200 people and sparked conflict.

Throughout Monday, a large crowd gathered in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis to celebrate the return of approximately 1,700 Palestinians detained during the war; In Ramallah, the capital of the West Bank, the public welcomed the arrival of 88 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences imposed by Israeli courts. At least one of them had been detained for 24 years. Approximately 160 more people were deported via Egypt after their release.

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel said almost all Palestinian detainees were being held without trial as “illegal combatants”. It was stated that among those released, 22 were minors and some of the 360 ​​Palestinian children held in Israeli custody.

A ceasefire appeared to hold in Gaza on Monday, following a two-year Israeli military offensive that has killed nearly 68,000 people. But the 2.1 million Palestinian survivors still face a deep and complex humanitarian crisis on a closed coastline where the vast majority of homes have been destroyed or severely damaged and they have been cut off from humanitarian aid for months.

Tom Fletcher, head of the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA, said aid deliveries had begun to arrive in Gaza and many more were ready to enter the affected area in the coming days.

“Millions of Palestinians trust that life-saving aid will be widely received. We must make this happen,” Fletcher said on social media while attending a peace summit in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Donald Trump, who brokered the ceasefire last week, arrived at the Red Sea resort after a brief visit to Israel. “A new day is dawning,” he said, and signed a joint statement with the leaders of Egypt, Qatar and Türkiye aimed at turning the ceasefire into a coherent peace plan.

The last Gaza ceasefire was broken two months later in March when Israel resumed its offensive. There are fears in the region that this ceasefire could be unstable, especially given the resistance from the far-right wing of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition.

Trump insisted his 20-point proposal to preserve peace and rebuild Gaza would take root. “The document lays out a set of rules and regulations and is very comprehensive,” the US president said.

The contents of the declaration signed in Sharm el-Sheikh were not immediately made public, and the demands expressed in Trump’s 20 points, which include the disarmament of Hamas and the deployment of a stabilization force under a technocratic Palestinian committee overseen by a “peace board” chaired by the US president, present an extremely challenging task.

The “Peace Summit” presented a virtual who’s who of Middle East and European politics, while also attracting other unlikely power brokers from the Trump era of international diplomacy, such as FIFA president Gianni Infantino. Leaders from at least 27 countries, mostly from Europe and the Middle East, attended the summit in Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday.

Conspicuously absent among them was Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu; his involvement was something other regional leaders would likely protest. But leaders of major Arab and regional states were present, including Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Türkiye’s Recep Erdogan and the leaders of the Gulf states Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Keir Starmer and European leaders from France, Germany, Italy, Hungary and others also attended.

However, representatives from Israel and Hamas did not attend the signing ceremony. Trump’s last-minute plan to invite Netanyahu fell through after Erdogan said he would not land his plane if the Israeli prime minister attended.

Trump said he watched videos of Israeli hostages being reunited with their families in Sharm el-Sheikh.

“I’ve never seen anything like this, this level of love and pain. It’s incredible. They haven’t been able to see their loved ones for so long,” he said. “In one sense, it’s so terrible that this has happened. On the other hand, it’s so beautiful to see a new, beautiful day dawn.”

Beyond the welcoming crowd at Khan Younis, reaction across Gaza to the mass release of detainees has been muted by desperate conditions and tensions over whether the ceasefire will hold. It was unclear how many of those released Monday were militants from Hamas or other armed groups and how many were captured by Israeli forces.

Some returned to meet new children born during their captivity. Others returned to find their relatives killed in a conflict that has seen a historically high rate of civilian casualties among Palestinians. The UN human rights commission evaluated Israel’s actions as genocide.

Haitham Salem, one of the detainees released Monday, learned upon his release that his wife and children had been killed and that he was the only survivor of his immediate family. Naji al-Jafaravi returned on the day his brother Saleh, a social media journalist and activist, was buried.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which oversaw the transfer of hostages and detainees and held brief meetings with all those released on Monday, said it also turned over the remains of four dead hostages to Israeli authorities.

Humanitarian aid workers said it was now a race against time to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. It was reported that within the scope of the ceasefire agreement, Israel will open five crossing points to Gaza, one of which is from Egypt. The only crossing between Gaza and Israel at Kerem Shalom was open to aid deliveries for most of the conflict.

“By easing movement and access restrictions in many areas, we were able to pre-position medical and emergency supplies where they were needed most, assess major roads for explosive hazards, and support displaced families in flood-prone areas,” Fletcher said, adding that Israeli security clearance for 190,000 metric tons of humanitarian supplies to enter Gaza, including food, tent materials, medicine, and other basic needs. He added that he gave