Israelis cheer release of first three Gaza hostages; Hamas’ armed wing ‘will abide by ceasefire deal’

Hamas’ armed wing said the group would abide by a ceasefire agreement that came into force in Gaza on Sunday but that any possible Israeli violations would endanger the process and put the lives of hostages at risk.

Negotiators are zeroing in on a potential deal to resolve one of the most explosive questions looming over Syria’s future: the fate of Kurdish forces that the US considers key allies against Islamic State but neighbouring Turkey regards as a national security threat.

Cheers and weeping as Israelis watch Gaza hostages return  

Hundreds of Israelis gathered in Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, some cheering and some in tears, as a giant television screen broadcast the first glimpse of the first three hostages to be released under the Gaza ceasefire deal.

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 surging crowd that was held back by Hamas gunmen.

The Israeli military shared video showing their families gathered in what appeared to be a military facility crying out in emotion as they watched footage of the handover to Israeli forces in Gaza before they were brought back into Israel.

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

The release of the three women, the first of 33 hostages due to be freed from Gaza under phase one of the deal, is in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

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

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

After 15 months of war, Gaza lies largely in ruins. Israel’s campaign has killed almost 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 still stands and there have been a series of rallies opposing the ceasefire as a sell-out that abandons men of military age taken captive, who are not in the first batch of 33 hostages.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has already resigned and his fellow hardliner Bezalel Smotrich has also opposed the deal and said he has been reassured that it is not the end of the war.

The Israel Democracy Institute said its latest Israeli Voice Index, conducted just before the deal was agreed, found 57.5% of Israelis in favour of a comprehensive agreement that would see all hostages back in return for ending the war. An additional 12% supported a partial hostage release in return for a temporary ceasefire.

Meanwhile, Palestinians burst into the streets to celebrate and return to the rubble of their bombed-out homes on Sunday after the ceasefire deal halted fighting in Gaza, and three female hostages freed by Hamas were reunited with their mothers inside Israel.

Armed Hamas fighters drove through the southern city of Khan Younis with crowds cheering and chanting. In the north of the territory, bombed into oblivion in the war’s most intense fighting, people picked their way on narrow roads through a devastated landscape of rubble and twisted metal.

“I feel like at last I found some water to drink after being lost in the desert for 15 months,” said Aya, a displaced woman from Gaza City who has been sheltering in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip for over a year, after the fighting stopped. “I feel alive again.”

The first phase of the truce in the 15-month-old war between Israel and Hamas took effect following a three-hour delay during which Israeli warplanes and artillery pounded the Gaza Strip.

That last-minute Israeli blitz killed 13 people, according to Palestinian health authorities. Israel blamed Hamas for being late to deliver the names of hostages it would free, and said it had struck terrorists. Hamas said the holdup in providing the list was a technical glitch.

“Today the guns in Gaza have gone silent,” said US President Joe Biden on his last full day in office, welcoming a truce that had eluded US diplomacy for more than a year.

The truce calls for fighting to stop, aid to be sent into Gaza and 33 of the 98 Israeli and foreign hostages still held there to go free over the six-week first phase in return for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

For Hamas, the truce could provide an opportunity to emerge from the shadows after 15 months in hiding. Hamas policemen dressed in blue police uniforms swiftly deployed in some areas.

The ceasefire agreement follows months of on-off negotiations brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the US, and comes into effect on the eve of the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump, who had said there would be “hell to pay” unless hostages were freed before he took office.

There is no detailed plan in place to govern Gaza after the war, much less rebuild it. Any return of Hamas to control in Gaza will test the commitment to the truce of Israel, which has said it will resume the war unless the militant group which has run the enclave since 2007 is fully dismantled.

Long lines of trucks carrying fuel and aid supplies queued up at border crossings in the hours before the ceasefire was due to take effect. The World Food Programme said they began to cross on Sunday morning.

The deal requires 600 truckloads of aid to be allowed into Gaza every day of the initial six-week ceasefire, including 50 carrying fuel. Half of the 600 aid trucks would be delivered to Gaza’s north, where experts have warned famine is imminent.

More than 47,000 Palestinians have since been killed in Israeli attacks that reduced the Gaza Strip to a wasteland, according to medical officials in the enclave. Nearly the entire 2.3 million population of the enclave is homeless. Around 400 Israeli soldiers have also died.

Hamas armed wing says it’s abiding by ceasefire deal

Hamas’ armed wing said the group would abide by a ceasefire agreement that came into force in Gaza on Sunday but that any possible Israeli violations would endanger the process and put the lives of hostages at risk.

In a video speech, al-Qassam Brigades spokesperson Abu Ubaida urged mediators to compel Israel to commit to the ceasefire deal, adding that the group would abide by all phases of the agreement and the timetable of the hostages-for-prisoners swap accord.

“Everything is dependent on the commitment by the enemy. Violations from the side of the occupation [Israel] would put the process at risk,” said Abu Ubaida.

“We are keen to succeed in all stages of the agreement, its details and timings to preserve the blood of our people and achieve their goals, and we urge the mediators to compel the enemy to abide by it,” he added.

Negotiators zero in on potential deal to disarm Syria’s last battleground

Negotiators are zeroing in on a potential deal to resolve one of the most explosive questions looming over Syria’s future: the fate of Kurdish forces that the US considers key allies against Islamic State but neighbouring Turkey regards as a national security threat.

Diplomatic and military negotiators from the US, Turkey, Syria and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were showing more flexibility and patience than their public statements suggested, a dozen sources told Reuters, including five directly involved in the intensive web of discussions in recent weeks.

This could set the stage for an accord in the coming months that would see some Kurdish fighters leave Syria’s restive northeast and others brought under the authority of the new defence ministry, said six of the sources.

However, many thorny issues needed to be resolved, they said. These include how to integrate the SDF alliance’s well-armed and trained fighters into Syria’s security framework and administer the territory under their control, which includes key oil and wheat fields.

How much autonomy Kurdish factions retain probably hinges on whether incoming Trump continues Washington’s longtime support of its Kurdish allies, according to diplomats and officials on all sides.

Hamas will never govern Gaza, says Trump’s national security adviser

US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser, Mike Waltz, said on Sunday that if Hamas reneged on the Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages deal, the US would support Israel “in doing what it has to do”.

He added in an interview with CBS’ Face the Nation, “Hamas will never govern Gaza. That is completely unacceptable.”

Waltz said Trump and his team had made clear to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, adding: “I want the Israeli people to hear me loud and clear. If Hamas reneges on this deal and Hamas backs out, moves the goalpost, what have you, we will support Israel in doing what it has to do.”

Waltz was also optimistic about the Trump administration being able to broker a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia as part of the Abraham Accords. DM

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