Trump declares peace as prisoners freed
All the remaining living Israeli hostages and Palestinian detainees are returning home as US President Donald Trump claimed the Holy Land was at peace. One Gaza journalist reflecting on covering the ‘decimation of her country’.
Hamas have freed the last living Israeli hostages from Gaza under a ceasefire deal and Israel sent home busloads of Palestinian detainees, as US President Donald Trump told Israel’s parliament that peace had arrived in the Holy Land.
The Israeli military said it had received all 20 hostages confirmed to be alive, after their transfer from Gaza by the Red Cross. The announcement prompted cheering, hugging and weeping among thousands waiting at “Hostage Square” in Tel Aviv.
In Gaza, thousands of relatives, many weeping with joy, gathered at a hospital where buses brought home some of the nearly 2000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees to be freed by Israel as part of the accord.
“The skies are calm, the guns are silent, the sirens are still and the sun rises on a Holy Land that is finally at peace,” Trump told the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, saying a “long nightmare” for both Israelis and Palestinians was over.
“Now it is time to translate these victories against terrorists on the battlefield into the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East,” he said before departing for a summit in Egypt intended to cement the truce.
The US, along with Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, mediated what has been described as a first phase agreement between Israel and Hamas for a ceasefire and the release of hostages by Hamas and prisoners and detainees by Israel.
Trump arrived in the Egyptian beach resort of Sharm el-Sheikh about an hour before sundown for the gathering of more than 20 world leaders, which he was to chair alongside President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
The Israeli hostages freed on Monday were the last still alive in captivity from 251 seized in the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, that killed 1200 people and triggered the war on Gaza.
You might like
The ceasefire and partial Israeli withdrawal agreed last week halted one of Israel’s biggest offensives of the war, an all-out assault on Gaza City that was killing scores of people per day.
Since then, huge numbers of Palestinians have been able to return to the ruins of homes in the Gaza Strip, swathes of which were reduced to a wasteland by Israeli bombardment that killed 68,000 people.
Formidable obstacles remain, even to securing an enduring ceasefire, much less to bringing a wider, more durable peace. Among the immediate issues still to be resolved: recovering the remains of another 26 Israeli hostages believed to have died and two whose fates are unknown.
Reports that aid supplies needed to be urgently rushed into Gaza have persisted for weeks as hundreds of thousands of people face famine. UN aid chief Tom Fletcher underlined the need to “get shelter and fuel to people who desperately need it and to massively scale up the food and medicine and other supplies going in”.
Beyond that, crucial issues have yet to be resolved, including how to govern and police Gaza, and the ultimate future of Hamas, which still rejects Israel’s demands to disarm.
The Gaza War has also reshaped the Middle East through spillover conflicts, with Israel imposing punishing damage in a 12-day war against Iran and campaigns against Tehran’s regional allies, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis.
Trump has presented his plan to end the war in Gaza as the catalyst for a wide regional peace settlement.
Beaming with relief and joy, two released hostages waved to cheering crowds from vans on the way to an Israeli hospital, one hoisting a large Israeli flag then forming a heart with his hands.
Video footage captured emotional scenes of families receiving phone messages from their loved ones as they were being released, their faces lighting up with disbelief and hope after months of anguish.
Stay informed, daily
Palestinians meanwhile rushed to embrace prisoners freed by Israel. Several thousand gathered inside and around Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, some waving Palestinian flags, others holding photos of their relatives.
Israel was due to release 1700 detainees it captured in Gaza, as well as 250 prisoners from its jails convicted or suspected of security offences, including attacks on Israelis.
Eyes of Gaza journalist reflects on her job, ‘mission’
Meanwhile, a Palestinian journalist known for reporting on Israel’s decimation of her country has revealed the deep sense of responsibility that drove her to do her job.
Plestia Alaqad’s first assignment after studying new media at university was to cover what an independent United Nations panel found was a genocide, surviving 45 days in Gaza before her family left for Australia.
The 22-year-old, whose diaries from her time in Palestine form her debut novel The Eyes of Gaza, addressed a Democracy in Colour event in western Sydney on Monday night.
Ms Alaqad said her journalism was not inspired by passion, but rather the mission of showing the world what Israel’s bombardment was truly like.
“No one teaches you how to report on a genocide or how to survive a genocide, that’s something where you just need to put yourself out there in the field and trust everything you’ve learned,” she said.
“Palestinian journalists are constantly reporting on the deliberate starvation that Israel is making, but they’re also starving while reporting on that.
“They report on families who lost loved ones, but they don’t have time to even grieve the loved ones that they lost.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists found 197 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israel since the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack.
Speaking days after a US-led ceasefire deal was announced, Ms Alaqad spoke of the “false hope” associated with pauses in hostilities after previous attempts proved fruitless.
The young Palestinian won a number of awards for her journalism, including the One Young World Journalist of the Year, the Lyra McKee Award for Bravery, and a Human Rights Defender award.
