The sounds of celebration replaced those of explosions in the Gaza Strip on Sunday as a fragile cease-fire came into effect after 470 days of war, allowing some hostages to return home to Israel, Palestinians imprisoned in Israel to be released, and displaced Gazans to search for what was left of their homes.
Under the terms of the laboriously reached deal, fighting between the Israeli military and Hamas militants stopped at 11:15 a.m., raising hopes for a more lasting end to a war that has plunged the Middle East into fear and uncertainty.
The first hostages — three women seized when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 — were released shortly afterward. Early Monday morning, the Israeli prison service said it had released 90 Palestinian prisoners being held in Israel, where they were met by excited family members.
At the same time, stepped-up aid deliveries — over 630 trucks in a single day — made their way into Gaza.
Joyous Palestinians honked car horns and blasted music in the central Gaza city of Deir al Balah, where children ran around in the streets. Israelis celebrated, too, as the hostages began returning, with anxious families anticipating the release of still more.
But underlying the relief was the knowledge that this phase of the cease-fire is to last just 42 days and free only some of the hostages, and that big diplomatic hurdles lie ahead if it is to be extended. Israel and Hamas reached the deal in part by putting off their most intractable disputes until a nebulous “second phase” that neither side is sure it will reach.
Almost as soon as the bombs stopped falling, masked gunmen and uniformed Hamas police officers came out of hiding and showed themselves on the streets of Gaza. The show of force was unmistakable, demonstrating that even after an overwhelming Israeli military campaign bent on destroying Hamas, the militant group remains the dominant Palestinian power in Gaza.
On Saturday night, as the cease-fire neared, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, reminded enemies and allies alike that the first phase of the deal was temporary and that Israel could still go back to fighting if the talks on the next stage of the cease-fire broke down.
“We retain the right to return to the war, if necessary, with the backing of the United States,” Mr. Netanyahu, whose coalition has been sharply divided by the cease-fire deal, said in a televised address.
Still, whatever the anxieties over the next weeks and months, on Sunday there were moments of joy.
One of the freed hostages, Emily Damari, could be seen smiling and leaning out the open window of a van as she was transported to Sheba Hospital in Tel Aviv. Ms. Damari had last been seen free 15 months ago, when she was kidnapped from her home at a kibbutz in southern Israel. She had been shot in the hand, and was driven away in her own car, a militant at the wheel.
A picture of Ms. Damari released by the Israeli military on Sunday showed her still smiling, though missing two middle fingers from her left hand. All three hostages later reunited with their relatives, who wept and gripped them tightly after over a year apart, according to footage released by the Israeli government. Their parents, siblings and friends had fought an international campaign for their freedom.
Under terms of the deal, Hamas is to gradually free 33 hostages, and in exchange Israel is to release more than 1,000 Palestinians being held Israeli prisons, including some serving life sentences for brutal attacks against Israelis. Ninety of them — all women and minors — were to be freed on Sunday.
Friends of the three hostages released on Sunday danced, sang, and waved Israeli flags in the air as they gathered at a hospital’s helipad. Gal Kubani, 28, a friend of Ms. Damari’s, said she was “overjoyed” by news of her release and “proud of Emily for surviving this madness.”
In Gaza, the celebration was tempered by grief. More than 46,000 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli military campaign, according to Gazan health officials, who don’t distinguish between civilians and combatants. Vast swaths of the enclave lie in ruins, and many displaced people have no homes to which to return.,
Soon after the fighting stopped, waves of displaced Palestinians began heading north, anxious to see whether any parts of their homes still stood.
Many people said they were determined to start to reclaim the lives they had once known, despite the huge amount of destruction across the enclave. “The joy of returning home is overwhelming, but it’s mixed with sadness,” said Ahed al-Okka, 52, a construction worker from Gaza City.
For others like Suhaila Dawaas, a displaced Gazan who said she had lost eight relatives in the war, grief overshadowed any hope for the future. Her home was mostly destroyed, although she hoped to find a few reminders of the life her family once had in the rubble.
“I can’t say I’m happy about this truce,” said Ms. Dawaas, a 55-year-old mother of eight. “What is left for us after everything? After the endless losses, the destruction, the pain?”
Drone videos taken over Gaza showed people fanning out across a wasteland. Gaza’s dense neighborhoods had been reduced to pancaked slabs of concrete, the roads turned to dust. With an untold number of bodies still trapped under the rubble, members of the Gaza Civil Emergency Service set to work.
The war began after Hamas invaded southern Israel, killing roughly 1,200 people, Israel says, and capturing 250 hostages. Some 100 hostages are still in Gaza, though around a third are believed to be dead.
Israel and Hamas have both preserved some of their bargaining chips. At the end of the first phase of the truce, Hamas will still have around two-thirds of the hostages. And Israel will still occupy parts of Gaza, and hold major prisoners, including Marwan Barghouti, a militant leader and iconic Palestinian political figure.
On Sunday, United Nations trucks carrying humanitarian supplies began entering Gaza just 15 minutes after the cease-fire took effect, according to Jonathan Whittall, the head of the U.N. humanitarian office for the Palestinian territories. Months of lawlessness and restrictions on humanitarian deliveries had reduced aid to a trickle.
Two convoys carrying ready-to-eat food parcels and wheat flour arrived in the enclave on Sunday, one through the Kerem Shalom crossing in southeastern Gaza, and another at a crossing in the north, according to Martin Penner, a spokesman for the United Nations’ World Food Program. The cease-fire deal calls for 600 trucks to be allowed to bring aid to Gazans daily, although it was not clear how the supplies would be distributed.
The cease-fire has already opened deep fissures within Prime Minister Netanyahu’s governing coalition.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister, resigned in protest from the cabinet and withdrew his Jewish Power party from the coalition on Sunday. The Religious Zionism party, led by Bezalel Smotrich, has suggested it could do the same unless Mr. Netanyahu continues the war after the initial truce.If it does so, Mr. Netanyahu’s government would hold fewer than half of the seats in the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, which could eventually force the government to fall and force new elections.
Teams of diplomats representing both President Biden and President-elect Donald J. Trump played a major role in brokering the cease-fire, and both men took credit for it on Mr. Biden’s penultimate day in office.
In remarks in South Carolina, Mr. Biden defended his unwavering support for Israel, over the advice of some who had warned him that it could draw the U.S. into a wider war. “Abandoning the course I was on would not have led us to the cease-fire we’re seeing today,” he said.
Reporting was contributed by Adam Rasgon, Natan Odenheimer, Ephrat Livni, Johnatan Reiss, Gabby Sobelman, Myra Noveck, Vivian Yee, Fatima AbdulKarim and Yan Zhuang.
