He is Avi (JO:) Ohio
SDEROT, Israel (Reuters) – Hundreds of Israelis gathered in Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, some cheering and others crying, as a large television screen broadcast the first glimpse of the first three hostages to be freed under the Gaza disengagement agreement.
They watched as 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 in a crowd held by Hamas fighters.
The Israeli army shared a video showing families gathered at what appears to be a military base crying out in emotion as they watched footage of the surrender of Israeli forces in Gaza before they were returned to Israel.
“Their return today represents a light in the darkness, a moment of hope and the triumph of the human spirit,” said the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group representing other abducted families.
The release of the three women, the first of 33 hostages to be released from Gaza under the first phase of the deal, is in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
The hostages were considered one of the most shocking events in the history of Israel, when Hamas gunmen attacked a series of communities around the Gaza Strip at 1:00 a.m. on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and soldiers and kidnapping 251 prisoners – 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 uncertainty surrounding the 94 prisoners still being held in the Gaza Strip.
“The ceasefire is what I hope will do,” said Tomer Mizrahi, in Sderot, a southern Israeli town near Gaza that was attacked on Oct. 7. “But as I know Hamas, you can't trust them one hundred percent.”
Images of Hamas police taking to the streets as the cease-fire took effect underscored how far Israel remains from its stated war goal 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 West Bank. “On the one hand there is a ceasefire to reinforce the forces, a break from all the madness, on the other, maybe it's not the time,” he said.
“They should have been eliminated, they should have been eliminated,” he said. “My son was on security duty for a year over there, for a whole year, and he sees all the Gazans returning, Hamas returning its forces to all the places where they fought.”
MILITARY AGE MEN NOT IN DEAL
After 15 months of war, Gaza is mostly in ruins. The Israeli campaign has killed nearly 47,000 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health and displaced more than two million people living in the area.
But for many in Israel, the war will not end while Hamas is still standing and there is a series of meetings against the ceasefire as a sale that leaves men of military age in captivity, not in the first group of 33. captives.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has since resigned and his colleague Bezalel Smotrich also opposed the deal and said he was assured it was not the end of the war.
The Israel Democracy Center said the latest Israeli poll, conducted shortly before the deal was agreed, found 57.5% of Israelis supported a comprehensive deal that would see all war-torn war-compensators. An additional 12% supported the release of hostages in part in return for a temporary ceasefire.
Among the mixed emotions, for some, the feeling of exhaustion overcame any concern for the future.
“We have been waiting for this for a long time. We wanted it to be a complete victory, I hope we will get that victory, if not now later,” said Shlomi Elkayam who owns a business in Sderot. “There are good things and bad things, but at the end of the day we're tired of it all. We're tired and we need everyone back home.”