The Israel Prison Service said it had completed the release of 90 Palestinian prisoners early on Monday, part of a Gaza ceasefire deal that took effect a day earlier.
"All the terrorists were released from Ofer prison and the Jerusalem detention centre", the service said in a statement, referring to the Palestinian prisoners.
It comes after the first , as some Palestinians burst into the streets to celebrate and began returning to the rubble of destroyed homes after a ceasefire deal halted fighting in Gaza.
Friends reach out to British-Israeli hostage Emily Damari as she arrives at Sheba Medical Center after the first phase of a ceasefire agreement began between Israel and Hamas. Source: Getty / Alexi J. Rosenfeld
In Tel Aviv, hundreds of Israelis in a square outside the defence headquarters watched a live broadcast from Gaza on Sunday (local time) showing the hostage release on a giant screen.
The crowd cheered, embraced and wept as three female hostages could be seen getting into a Red Cross vehicle surrounded by armed Hamas fighters.
Soon after, the Israeli military said Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari had been reunited with their mothers at a meeting point inside Israel, close to the kibbutz and nearby music festival where they had been abducted in the October 7 Hamas attack that precipitated the war.
The three appeared in good health in a video later released by the military. Damari, who lost two fingers when she was shot the day she was abducted, could be seen smiling and embracing her mother as she held up a bandaged hand.
Medical staff at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan later said the three released women hostages were in a "stable condition".
Emily Damari and her mother Mandy were reunited on Sunday after Emily was released from captivity by Hamas militants in Gaza. Source: AP / AP
In the north of the territory, bombed 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.
'Welcome home'
"I would like you to tell them: Romi, Doron and Emily, an entire nation embraces you. Welcome home," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a commander by phone as the hostages were driven across the border.
"I know, we all know, they have been through hell. They are emerging from darkness into light, from bondage to freedom."
The Hostage and Missing Families Forum campaign group hailed their return as "a beacon of light".
Doron Steinbrecher and her mother Simona embrace after Doron was released from captivity by Hamas militants in Gaza. Doron was abducted from her home in kibbutz Kfar Aza on 7 October 2023. Source: AP / AP
Hamas said the first group to be freed in exchange for the hostages includes 69 women and 21 teenage boys.
In the occupied West Bank, buses awaited their release.
Romi Gonen and her mother Merav embrace after Romi was released from captivity by Hamas militants in Gaza. Hamas gunmen abducted Romi from the Nova music festival on 7 October 2023. Source: AP / AP
"All the prisoners being released today feel like family to us. They are part of us, even if they’re not blood relatives.
The first phase of the truce in the 15-month-old war between Israel and Hamas took effect during which Israeli warplanes and artillery pounded the Gaza Strip.
The last-minute Israeli attack killed 13 people, according to Palestinian health authorities. Israel accused Hamas of being late to deliver the names of hostages it would free and said it had struck militants. Hamas said the holdup in providing the list was technical.
"Today, the guns in Gaza have gone silent," outgoing United States President Joe Biden said on his last full day in office, welcoming a truce that had eluded US diplomacy for more than a year.
"It was a long road," Biden said. "But we've reached this point today because of the pressure Israel built on Hamas, backed by the United States."
The truce calls for fighting to stop, aid to be sent into Gaza, and 33 of nearly 100 Israeli and foreign hostages to go free over the six-week first phase in return for nearly 2,000 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 were swiftly deployed in some areas.
'Complete joy' for some Gazans while 'deep pain' remains
The streets in shattered Gaza City in the north of the territory were already busy with groups of people waving the Palestinian flags and filming the scenes on their mobile phones. Several carts loaded with household possessions travelled down a thoroughfare scattered with rubble and debris.
Ahmed Abu Ayham, 40, a Gaza City native sheltering in Khan Younis, said while the ceasefire may have spared lives, the losses and destruction made it no time for celebrations.
"We are in pain, deep pain and it is time to hug one another and cry," he said.
A view of destruction in the Jabalia refugee camp as the ceasefire begins. Source: Getty / Anadolu/Anadolu
"It is an indescribable feeling, a complete joy," he said. However, he said those in nearby areas whose homes had been completely destroyed would not share their happiness.
Long lines of trucks carrying fuel and aid supplies queued up at border crossings in the hours before the ceasefire. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said they started to cross on Sunday morning (local time).
"These are the first of many trucks amid the ceasefire delivering lifesaving food to 2M people in Gaza in urgent need," Cindy McCain, director of WFP, said on X.
"We are hopeful to maintain access at scale."
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.
Hamas 'will never govern Gaza'
There is no detailed plan in place to govern Gaza after the war, much less rebuild it. Any return of Hamas will test the patience of Israel, which has said it will resume fighting unless the militant group is fully dismantled.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir quit the cabinet over the ceasefire, though his party said it would not try to bring down Netanyahu's government.
The other most prominent hardliner, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, stayed in the government but said he would quit if the war ended without Hamas completely destroyed.
The truce came into effect on the eve of the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump.
Trump's national security adviser-designate, Mike Waltz, said if Hamas reneges on the agreement, the US would support Israel "in doing what it has to do".
"Hamas will never govern Gaza. That is completely unacceptable."
Israel has bombarded Gaza since Hamas' October 7 attack in which more than 1,200 people, including an estimated 30 children, were killed and over 200 hostages taken, according to the Israeli government.
More than 46,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
The October 7 attack was a significant escalation in the long-standing conflict between Israel and Hamas.
