Release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian detainees: how the day unfolded | Israel

It was a day of joy, sadness and diplomatic drama in the Middle East. chief correspondent Dan Boffey The last hostages kidnapped on October 7 were in the “hostages square” in Tel Aviv when they were released. When news broke that the first seven hostages were safe, the crowd erupted in cheers.

Boffey tells Lucy Hough about the latest hostages and what their release means to the people. Someone in the square told him: “Israel is a place where Jews are supposed to be safe, and if these people haven’t returned home, then what’s the point of Israel?”

Trump flew to Israel to give a speech at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. There he was praised by Benjamin Netanyahu and applauded by the crowd in the hostages square. International security correspondent jason burke “It’s pretty clear that if Trump hadn’t really decided that this was going to happen and leaned too heavily on Netanyahu, nothing would have happened in the last few weeks,” he says. He tells Hough about the talks Trump is having in Egypt and why so many world leaders are gathering there.

Correspondent Will it be Christou?Meanwhile, in Ramallah on the West Bank, families awaited the release of their loved ones from Israeli prisons. He says the joy there was mixed with sadness, but some people waiting for their family members to be released were told they would be sent to Gaza instead. But for many, the ceasefire at least allowed for an end to the suffering of the past two years. “I think people appreciate the chance to breathe, and they’ve needed that for the last two years,” he says.