A summary of today's developments
Emily Damari, the dual British-Israeli national who was among the first three hostages freed by Hamas on Sunday, said she has “returned to my beloved life”, thanking God, her family, her girlfriend, Oreli, and “the best friends I have in this world”in a post on Instagram.
Hamas has vowed that Gaza and its people “will rise again” and rebuild the territory largely destroyed by Israeli attacks. “Gaza, with its great people and its resilience, will rise again to rebuild what the occupation has destroyed and continue on the path of steadfastness until the occupation is defeated,” Hamas said in a statement issued on the second day of a ceasefire with Israel.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have indicated they will limit their attacks in the Red Sea corridor to only Israeli-affiliated ships as the ceasefire in Gaza takes hold. Making the announcement in an email to other shippers yesterday, the Houthis said they were “stopping sanctions” on the other vessels it previously targeted in attacks.
More than 630 humanitarian aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip on Sunday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council, with at least 300 of those trucks going to the enclave’s north, where the U.N. has warned that famine looms.
Ninety Palestinian prisoners were released early on Monday as part of the ceasefire deal. Those freed from Israeli prisons included 69 women and 21 teenage boys from the West Bank and Jerusalem, according to Hamas. The prisoners, most of whom were freed from Ofer prison in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, were welcomed by thousands of people celebrating.
It followed the release of three Israeli women held hostage by Hamas in tunnels beneath Gaza after being abducted by Hamas on 7 October 2023. Among those released was joint British national Emily Damari, 28, who was freed alongside Romi Gonen, 24 and Doron Steinbrecher, 31. The women have been reunited with their mothers after being handed over by the International Committee for the Red Cross.
The World Health Organization says it is ready to pour much-needed aid into Gaza during the Israel-Hamas truce, but that it would need “systematic access” across the territory to do so. Much of the Gaza Strip’s health infrastructure has been destroyed by Israeli attacks over the more than year-long war.
The first phase of the truce took effect after a three-hour delay during which Israeli warplanes and artillery pounded the Gaza Strip. At least 13 people were killed, Palestinian health authorities said. Al Jazeera reported that at least two missiles hit a family travelling on a donkey cart as they tried to return home.
Thousands of displaced Palestinian people have started to return home, many to destroyed buildings and homes in ruins. There is no detailed plan in place to govern Gaza after the war, much less rebuild it. Nine in 10 homes have been destroyed as well as schools, hospitals, shops, mosques and cemeteries.
Under the first phase of the ceasefire deal, which is to last 42 days, Hamas has agreed to release 33 hostages including children, women (including female soldiers) and men aged over 50, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
In the second phase, the remaining living hostages are due to be sent back and a corresponding ratio of Palestinian prisoners will be freed, and Israel will completely withdraw from the territory. The specifics are subject to further negotiations, which are due to start 16 days into the first phase.
The third phase will address the exchange of bodies of deceased hostages and Hamas members, and a reconstruction plan for Gaza will be launched. Arrangements for future governance of the strip remain hazy.
After the first night in Gaza for more than a year without the sound of drones or bombing overhead following the successful implementation of a ceasefire, people in the besieged Palestinian territory have begun returning to destroyed homes and searching for missing loved ones, writes Bethan McKernan and Malak A Tantesh.
The truce that took effect on Sunday with the release of the first three hostages held by Hamas in exchange for 90 Palestinians from Israeli jails was greeted with euphoria as a large influx of desperately needed aid supplies entered the strip.
By Monday, however, the celebrations largely gave way to shock and sorrow, as the strip’s 2.3 million population began to assess the scale of the devastation wreaked by Israel in retaliation for the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack.
In Israel, joy at the three hostages’ safe return was tempered by anger and surprise at Hamas’s show of force at the hostage handover after 15 months of gruelling combat.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) is “ready” to assume control over Gaza, manage humanitarian crossing points, provide essential services, and direct future reconstruction processes, Varsen Aghabekian, the Palestinian Authority foreign affairs minister, told a UN security council special meeting on Palestine.
In the first UN meeting since the ceasefire came into force, she said the PA was willing to run the Gaza Strip and West Bank in cooperation with friendly and sisterly countries and organisations.
Her remarks represent another effort by the PA to show that it can take over from Hamas in Gaza, even though Hamas has been clearly trying to show its military infrastructure has not been destroyed by the Israel Defense Forces. Israel has resisted PA taking control but has been less clear what alternative governance it proposes.
Aghabekian said: “We are ready to provide basic services including health education, water and electricity to guarantee the return of displaced people and to prepare for the reconstruction phase.
“We are ready to manage the crossing points in collaboration with the EU and Egypt.”
She said any help in training PA forces would be welcome and seemed to recognise a role for international partners.
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Qatar and Egypt have set up a communications hub to tackle any problems with the delayed Gaza ceasefire.
“These kinds of deals are never easy to maintain,” said Majed Al-Ansari, spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry.
“Any party could consider a threat a reason to violate the parameters of the agreement, and therefore we would end up with having to go in and to find a way to resume the ceasefire.”
The UK’s foreign secretary David Lammy said it was “deeply moving” to see pictures of Emily Damari being reunited with her mother.
Speaking ahead of making a Commons statement on Ukraine, Lammy told MPs: “I want to begin by welcoming the release of Emily Damari.
“After 471 days of captivity, she has been brought home. It was deeply moving to see those pictures of Emily and her mother Mandy reunited. I pay tribute once again to all those who campaigned so tirelessly for this moment.
“The Government will continue to work closely with our partners to secure the release of all the hostages, to get aid into Gaza, and to see this deal implemented in full.”
More than 630 humanitarian aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip on Sunday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council, with at least 300 of those trucks going to the enclave’s north, where the U.N. has warned that famine looms.
The trucks entered on the first day of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas.
We’ve been reporting today too on the reaction to the release of a British-Israeli hostage from Hamas captivity in Gaza.
In her first comments since being freed, Emily Damari, 28, said she has “returned to life” and thanked her family and friends who campaigned for her release. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m the happiest in the world,” she said in Hebrew on Instagram.
Damari was freed after 471 days in captivity alongside two other Israeli hostages, Romi Gonen, 24, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31, as part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
The Tottenham Hotspur fan who was born in Israel to a British mother and Israeli father returned from Gaza with a bandage on one hand. She lost two fingers when she was shot and abducted from her home in the Kfar Aza kibbutz during Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack.
Her mother, Mandy Damari was pictured embracing her at Tel Aviv’s Sheba Medical Center, where Gonen and Steinbrecher were also reunited with their families.
“Yesterday, I was finally able to give Emily the hug that I have been dreaming of,” Mandy Damari, 63, said on Monday. “From the bottom of my heart I would like to thank the many people who have played a role in bringing Emily home and given their support to me and my family.
Read the full story below
The longest-serving Palestinian inmate in Israeli jail is among more than 200 set to be deported under the Gaza ceasefire agreement.
Nael Barghouti, 67, has been locked up for 44 years, more than any other Palestinian.
Jailed in 1978 for killing an Israeli bus driver, he was freed in 2011 in a previous swap but re-arrested three years later and held ever since.
Israel has said that Palestinians who have been convicted of killing Israelis must be permanently deported if they are freed under the Gaza ceasefire agreement, and will not be allowed to return to homes in the occupied West Bank.
Barghouti is one of 217 prisoners on a list from the Israeli justice ministry, cited by the Palestinian prisoners’ association, of those to be sent abroad.
His wife Eman Nafe, herself a former prisoner who spent 10 years in Israeli jail accused of plotting a suicide attack, said she thought he might reject release if it meant being sent abroad: “I am sure he will refuse this,” she told the Reuters news agency.
Hours after the ceasefire was declared on Sunday, Hamas fighters were back on Gaza’s streets. Not many, it was true, and those who appeared were armed only with Kalashnikov rifles and some rudimentary body armour, but they were there.
In Khan Younis, a handful of pickup trucks with gunmen onboard drove through cheering crowds of young men. Dozens of uniformed fighters with Hamas headbands were visible when the three Israeli hostages were handed over in Gaza City. Elsewhere, there were reports that Hamas policemen, dressed in blue police uniform, deployed in some areas after months in hiding to avoid Israeli strikes.
These were the sights that Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, wanted to avoid, but no doubt knew would come.
They are the images that Hamas most want to be seen – in Gaza and the West Bank, the region and the world. They do not show a large or particularly capable force, and social media has exerted its usual magnifying effect. But, as they were meant to do, the images show that Hamas has survived the Israeli onslaught of the last 15 months and that, Hamas leaders believe, is a major victory in itself.
Full story below
Updated
We reported in our post at 12.53 GMT on the impact of the war on Gaza’s homes and infrastructure and the need to rebuild the devastated strip.
It has also emerged that the flow of aid into Gaza could take time to ramp up, chief of the International Rescue Committee David Miliband said on Monday, as relief trucks conducted a second day of deliveries following the start of the ceasefire.
The deal requires 600 truckloads of aid to be allowed into Gaza every day of the initial six-week ceasefire, including 50 carrying fuel.
“That’s a big step up,” said Miliband, speaking to tje Reuters news agency in London. “I fear* it will take time. We want to ramp up as quickly as possible.”
He said the IRC in Gaza is focused particularly on water and sanitation, child protection and other healthcare.
“What counts is the medicine that gets through, the water* the fuel* the aid workers... and whether they get through safely,” he said, referring to issues with looting and security threats to deliveries that have been a problem during the 15-month war, when aid to Gaza has been extremely limited.
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ICC braces for swift Trump sanctions over Israeli arrest warrants
Harry Davies is an investigations correspondent at the Guardian
The international criminal court is bracing itself for Donald Trump to launch aggressive economic sanctions against it this week, amid fears such a move could paralyse its work and pose an existential threat.
ICC officials are preparing for Trump’s new US administration to act quickly once in office to impose draconian financial and travel restrictions against the court and senior staff, including its chief prosecutor and judges.
The threat of US sanctions has loomed over the ICC since it issued arrest warrants in November against the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
In response to the warrants, the US House of Representatives voted earlier this month to impose sanctions on the ICC, advancing legislation that Republican leaders have said will soon be voted on in the Senate.
You can read the full story here:
Drone footage shows the moment the three female hostages (Romi Gonen, Emily Demari and Doron Steinbracher) were released in Gaza City to be returned to Israel yesterday. You can watch the video here:
Hamas says people of Gaza will 'rise again' and rebuild territory destroyed by Israel
Hamas, the Palestinian militant group which is committed to the destruction of Israel and has been in control of Gaza since 2007, has vowed that Gaza and its people “will rise again” and rebuild the territory largely destroyed by Israeli attacks.
“Gaza, with its great people and its resilience, will rise again to rebuild what the occupation has destroyed and continue on the path of steadfastness until the occupation is defeated,” Hamas said in a statement issued on the second day of a ceasefire with Israel.
“Over the course of 471 days, the systematic crimes of the occupation have failed to dissuade our people and their valiant resistance from clinging to the land and confronting the aggression.”
More than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed inside Gaza by Israeli attacks, according to health officials in the territory, with schools, hospitals and other infrastructure like roads destroyed by relentless bombardments.
Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser, Mike Waltz, warned yesterday that if Hamas reneges on the Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages deal, the US will support Israel “in doing what it has to do.”
He added in an interview with CBS’ Face the Nation programme: “Hamas will never govern Gaza (again). That is completely unacceptable.”
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China – which historically has been supportive of the two-state solution and has long openly sympathised with the Palestinian cause – has expressed support for the Gaza ceasefire, which seems so far to be holding.
During a news briefing, the country’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said:
China welcomes the Gaza ceasefire agreement coming into effect. We hope the agreement will be fully and continuously implemented, and a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire in Gaza will be achieved.
China will continue to work with the international community to promote peace and stability in the Middle East.
The Israeli military says a soldier was killed and another was seriously injured in the occupied West Bank.
The military declined to provide further details, according to a report by the Associated Press. Israeli media reported on Monday that the soldiers’ vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in the northern West Bank overnight.
The Israeli military has said that over 400 of its soldiers have been killed in combat since its war on Gaza was launched in late October 2023.
Updated
For a more in-depth look at the damage to Gaza’s buildings and infrastructure caused by the war, take a look at the gallery below created by The Guardian’s photography team
Updated
More now on a future rebuild of Gaza. A UN report released last year stated it would be at least 2040 until the strip is rebuilt, while a UN damage assessment estimated the cost at around $1.2bn.
The debris is believed to be contaminated with asbestos, with some refugee camps struck during the war known to have been built with the material.
Israel said its goal in the war was to eradicate Hamas and destroy the tunnel network it built underground.
Residents and medics in Gaza told the Reuters news agency today for the most part the ceasefire appeared to be holding, although there were isolated incidents.
Medics said eight people had been hit by Israeli fire since Monday morning in the southern city of Rafah, without giving details of their condition.
Palestinians return to Gaza after ceasefire comes into force
A displaced Palestinian has described scenes in Gaza as akin to “destruction, total destruction”, as a search for thousands of people buried under rubble gets under way.
Mohamed Gomaa’s brother and nephew are among the 47,000 people estimated by the Gaza health ministry to have been killed since the war started.
Now, with the ceasefire now in effect, attention is starting to shift to the rebuilding of the coastal enclave demolished by Israel in retaliation for a Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023 which killed 1,200 people.
“It was a big shock, and the amount (of people) feeling shocked is countless because of what happened to their homes - it’s destruction, total destruction” Gomaa said.
“It’s not like an earthquake or a flood, no no, what happened is a war of extermination,” he said.”
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The mother of American journalist Austin Tice has expressed hope that the new administrations in the US and Syria would help her find her missing son, who was taken captive during a reporting trip near Damascus about 12 years ago.
“Today, January 20, President (Donald) Trump will be sworn into office and I have great hope that his administration will work to bring Austin home,” Debra Tice told a press conference in Damascus this morning.
Tice has criticised outgoing US President Joe Biden’s administration, saying they did not negotiate hard enough for her son’s release. She said she was hopeful because officials in the new US government had already reached out to her about her missing son.
Austin Tice, a former US marine and freelance journalist from Houston, was abducted in August 2012 while reporting on the uprising against the then president Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, the Syrian capital.
Assad’s overthrow by Syrian rebels in December has allowed his mother to visit again from her home in Texas, but she said since the Hayat Tahrir al Sham led offensive it has become even more difficult to know where her son is being held and by whom.
Tice met Syria’s new leaders on Sunday, whom she said demonstrated a “dedication” to bring her son back. “The new administration knows what we’re going through and they’re trying to make things right for people like us,” she said.
Ismail Baghaei, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, has given a dismal report card on the Biden administration’s foreign policy during a press conference this morning, accusing Biden of siding with an “open genocide” by Israel in Gaza.
Baghaei said that Biden’s foreign policy team had delivered “one of the worst performances in the last 60 years, because the last 16 months of this administration’s tenure were spent siding with an open genocide in the region.”
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How will the Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal work?
Here are the main elements of the Gaza ceasefire deal, as outlined by my colleague Bethan McKernan. You can read her explainer about the agreement and whether or not it is likely to lead to a permanent ceasefire here.
What’s in the deal?
All fighting is to pause during the first 42-day phase. Israeli forces are to withdraw from Gaza’s cities to a “buffer zone” along the edge of the strip, displaced Palestinians will be able to return home and there will be a marked increase in aid deliveries.
In the second stage, of unclear duration, the remaining living hostages will be returned and a corresponding ratio of Palestinian prisoners freed, alongside a complete Israeli withdrawal from the strip. The Rafah crossing to Egypt will be opened for the sick and wounded to leave. It is unclear whether it will be returned to Palestinian control.
The third phase, which could last years, would address the exchange of bodies of deceased hostages and Hamas members, and a reconstruction plan for Gaza. Much of the international community has advocated for the semi-autonomous West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, which lost control of Gaza to Hamas in 2007, to return to the strip. Israel, however, has repeatedly rejected the suggestion.
How will stage one work?
A total of 33 hostages will be released over the next six weeks, in exchange for about 1,700 Palestinians held in Israel prisons, about 1,000 of whom are from Gaza and were arrested after 7 October 2023 under emergency legislation which allowed detention without charge or trial.
Three female captives – named by Hamas as Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari – were freed first in exchange for about 90 Palestinians. A handful of Israelis will then be released every Saturday for the next six weeks; the number of Palestinians to be freed upon their return generally depends on whether the Israelis are civilians or soldiers. Some of the freed Palestinians from the West Bank sentenced for serious crimes against Israelis will be sent to third countries rather than be allowed to return home.
In Gaza, people displaced from their homes will be allowed to move freely around the Palestinian territory from day seven, and 600 trucks of aid will arrive each day to alleviate the strip’s dire humanitarian conditions.
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the newswires:
Israel’s campaign of aerial bombing has devastated the Gaza Strip. According to an analysis by the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT), more than two-thirds of all buildings in Gaza have sustained some damage, which they estimate to be around 163,778 buildings. Approximately 52,564 structures are estimated to have been destroyed.
Gaza’s two largest cities, Gaza City and Khan Younis, are two of the most badly affected areas, where 74% of buildings and 55% of buildings are believed to have been either damaged or destroyed. Here are some satellite images we’ve gathered from Planet Labs, showing the scale of destruction in these two major urban areas.
Here are two satellite images of Gaza City’s centre:
And here is a before and after image of Khan Younis:
Houthis say they’ll limit their attacks in the Red Sea corridor
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have indicated they will limit their attacks in the Red Sea corridor to only Israeli-affiliated ships as the ceasefire in Gaza takes hold.
Making the announcement in an email to other shippers yesterday, the Houthis said they were “stopping sanctions” on the other vessels it previously targeted in attacks.
Since October 2023, the Iran-backed Houthis have positioned themselves as a key member of Tehran’s regional network of allies, which includes armed groups in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.
The Houthis have targeted about 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since then, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
In recent weeks, only about 40 trucks of aid were getting in on average, while before the war started in October 2023, around 500 trucks entered Gaza every day.
The ceasefire agreement allows for 600 trucks a day of aid to enter Gaza, where nine out of 10 Palestinians are going hungry and experts warn that famine is imminent in areas. Israel faces accusations it is using starvation as a weapon of war, accusations it denies.
A spokesperson from the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has told Al Jazeera that trucks packed with lifesaving aid are waiting in Jordan, Egypt and the occupied West Bank loaded with food, water, tents and medical supplies.
There are hopes that the ceasefire will help to, at least partly, ease the dire humanitarian crisis caused by Israel’s war on Gaza, with widespread shortages of food, medicine and clean water across the strip. Displaced by Israeli airstrikes, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people have been packed into crowded refugee camps along the coast, enduring cold winter weather amid widespread malnutrition. Aid groups have struggled to deliver food and supplies, accusing Israel of blocking deliveries up until now.
PRCS spokesperson Nebal Farsakh said healthcare is the top priority as health infrastructure in northern Gaza effectively collapsed during the war.
“The medical supplies and medications, these will be going to support the work of the Palestine Crescent at our hospitals and medical points in addition to a new field hospital we are currently establishing in Gaza in order to support the people there, especially as the healthcare system in northern Gaza has collapsed,” Farsakh told Al Jazeera, speaking from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
“The majority of hospitals were taken out of service, and now there’s expectation that thousands of families will be going back to Gaza City and the north, and we need to be prepared to provide healthcare services for the displaced families there.”
As my colleague Bethan McKernan notes in this explainer, a total of 33 hostages will be released over the next six weeks, in exchange for about 1,700 Palestinians held in Israel prisons, about 1,000 of whom are from Gaza and were arrested after 7 October 2023 under emergency legislation which allowed detention without charge or trial.
In an interview with French broadcaster BFMTV, France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, said that the government will continue pushing for the release of the two French-Israeli nationals still being held by Hamas, the Palestinian militant group.
Ofer Kalderon and Ohad Yahalomi are expected to be on the list of 33 hostages to be set free in the first phase of the ceasefire deal, which will see the staggered release of hostages.
“We will continue to fight until the last hour for their release,” Barrot told BFM TV, adding that France had “no news on their health status nor on the terms of their detention”.
Ofer Kalderon (à gauche) et Ohad Yahalomi (à droite) font partie de la liste des 33 otages libérables dans le cadre de la trêve entre Israël et le Hamas
— Le Parisien (@le_Parisien) January 17, 2025
L'avocat de la famille Kalderon se montre toutefois prudent
➡️ https://t.co/ZfpNzJ7f28 pic.twitter.com/XsVJXrYTSo
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'I’ve returned to my beloved life,' freed British-Israeli hostage says
Emily Damari - the dual British-Israeli national who was among the first three hostages freed by Hamas yesterday - has said she has “returned to my beloved life”, thanking God, her family, her girlfriend, Oreli, and “the best friends I have in this world”in a post on Instagram.
She said the outpouring of love she received following her release made her heart “explode with excitement”.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m the happiest in the world just to be.”
Hamas kidnapped Damari from her apartment in the Kfar Aza kibbutz on 7 October 2023, along with 37 other residents of the community on the Gaza border. She was the only hostage with British citizenship being held. Damari was pictured with two missing fingers upon her return - an injury reportedly sustained when she was shot before being captured. You can read more about Damari and the other two hostages freed yesterday in this profile.
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The Spanish government has welcomed the Gaza ceasefire agreement, which will allow for an increase in aid to the strip. The Spanish foreign ministry said the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) is “essential and irreplicable” to the delivery of humanitarian relief in the territory.
Israel’s government is still committed to its plan to ban Unrwa from operating and to cut all ties between the agency and the Israeli government. It has accused the UN agency of allowing Hamas militants to infiltrate its staff, an allegation the agency denies. Unrwa is the major distributor of aid in Gaza and provides education, health and other basic services to millions of Palestinian refugees across the region, including in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Spain’s foreign ministry said in a statement:
It is essential that negotiations between the parties resume immediately in order to move on to the successive phases of the agreement.
Spain will support stabilisation efforts in Gaza, which will only be viable if the Palestinian Authority assumes its governing responsibilities in all Palestinian territories, re-establishes security and basic services and prepares the reconstruction of Gaza.
The government of Spain will continue to work with regional partners and allies to promote the implementation of the two-state solution, which is the best guarantee of peace and stability for the region.
Updated
We have some comments from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which facilitated the release and transfer of three Israeli hostages and 90 Palestinian prisoners in the ceasefire’s first such exchange. The ICRC president Mirjana Spoljaric said ensuring the safety of the people being transferred was the priority, with “large crowds” containing people with “heightened emotions” posing “challenges” in a “complex” operation – both logistical and otherwise.
There were also risks posed by unexploded ordnances and destroyed infrastructure, the ICRC, which has urged all parties to adhere to the requirements of the ceasefire, said.
“We are relieved that those released can be reunited with their loved ones,” Spoljaric said. “Ensuring their safe return and providing the necessary care at this critical moment is a great responsibility. This operation is a powerful example of how our role as a neutral actor between the warring sides can save and change lives, provided that the parties come to an agreement.”
“More families are waiting anxiously for their loved ones to come home,” she added. “We call on all parties to continue to adhere to their commitments to ensure the next operations can take place safely. Our teams are ready to continue to implement the agreement so that more hostages and detainees are released, and more families reunited.”
The ICRC said it is ready to “significantly scale up its humanitarian response”, including providing essential relief such as food, water and healthcare, to ease the humanitarian crisis the territory has suffered during Israel’s assault on it.
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Interim summary
If you are just catching up on the latest on the Gaza ceasefire, here is what you need to know.
Ninety Palestinian prisoners were released early on Monday as part of the ceasefire deal. Those freed from Israeli prisons included 69 women and 21 teenage boys from the West Bank and Jerusalem, according to Hamas. The prisoners, most of whom were freed from Ofer prison in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, were welcomed by thousands of people celebrating.
It followed the release of three Israeli women held hostage by Hamas in tunnels beneath Gaza after being abducted by Hamas on 7 October 2023. Among those released was joint British national Emily Damari, 28, who was freed alongside Romi Gonen, 24 and Doron Steinbrecher, 31. The women have been reunited with their mothers after being handed over by the International Committee for the Red Cross.
As the fighting ceased, hundreds of aid trucks queued to enter Gaza to deliver supplies to its 2.3 million residents, 90% of whom have been displaced by the conflict, many multiple times.
The World Health Organization says it is ready to pour much-needed aid into Gaza during the Israel-Hamas truce, but that it would need “systematic access” across the territory to do so. Much of the Gaza Strip’s health infrastructure has been destroyed by Israeli attacks over the more than year-long war.
The first phase of the truce took effect after a three-hour delay during which Israeli warplanes and artillery pounded the Gaza Strip. At least 13 people were killed, Palestinian health authorities said. Al Jazeera reported that at least two missiles hit a family travelling on a donkey cart as they tried to return home.
Thousands of displaced Palestinian people have started to return home, many to destroyed buildings and homes in ruins. There is no detailed plan in place to govern Gaza after the war, much less rebuild it. Nine in 10 homes have been destroyed as well as schools, hospitals, shops, mosques and cemeteries.
Under the first phase of the ceasefire deal, which is to last 42 days, Hamas has agreed to release 33 hostages including children, women (including female soldiers) and men aged over 50, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
In the second phase, the remaining living hostages are due to be sent back and a corresponding ratio of Palestinian prisoners will be freed, and Israel will completely withdraw from the territory. The specifics are subject to further negotiations, which are due to start 16 days into the first phase.
The third phase will address the exchange of bodies of deceased hostages and Hamas members, and a reconstruction plan for Gaza will be launched. Arrangements for future governance of the strip remain hazy.
Updated
Even before the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas was fully in place, Palestinians in the war-battered Gaza Strip began to return to the remains of the homes they had evacuated during Israel’s 15-month war on the territory.
Many were returning to homes in ruins.
They trekked through the wreckage, some on foot and others hauling their belongings on donkey carts.
The return of the families comes amid looming uncertainty about whether the ceasefire deal will bring more than a temporary halt to the fighting, who will govern the enclave and how it will be rebuilt.
Internally displaced Palestinians in the southern city of Rafah on 19 January.
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Minutes after the truce began, the United Nations said the first trucks carrying desperately needed humanitarian aid had entered the Palestinian territory.
“It is imperative that this ceasefire removes the significant security and political obstacles to delivering aid,” UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said.
The World Health Organisation said it was also ready to pour aid into Gaza but that it would need “systematic access” across the territory to do so.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus later said on X that “restoring the health system in Gaza will be a complex and challenging task, given the scale of destruction”.
Another UN agency, the World Food Programme, said it was moving full throttle to get food to as many Gazans as possible.
“We’re trying to reach a million people within the shortest possible time,” the WFP’s deputy executive director, Carl Skau, told AFP.
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Will the Israel-Hamas agreement hold?
What happens after the deal’s first phase of 42 days is uncertain. The agreement’s subsequent stages call for more releases of hostages and prisoners and a permanent end to the war.
The next release of hostages and prisoners is due next Saturday. In just over two weeks, talks are to begin on the far more challenging second phase of the ceasefire agreement.
Already, the hours-long delay in implementing the Gaza ceasefire agreement “is not a good omen for a deal that many fear could be doomed to failure” as it moves through its challenging three phases, writes the Guardian’s Peter Beaumont.
“Trust on both sides has been negligible at best,” he wrote.
For more details on the precarious ceasefire deal, read this analysis on the dynamics at play.
If you are just getting up to speed on the latest of the ceasefire deal, our reporters on the ground have filed these dispatches of the events.
In the West Bank thousands of people waited for hours into the evening and early morning, waving the flags of Palestine and Hamas, as they waited to embrace their loved ones.
“I’m happy, but not too happy,” Nawaf Jarabaa, told the Guardian, “My daughter was arrested simply for expressing her ideas … The thing that bothers me the most is that people think that the Israelis have only behaved this way towards us since 7 October, but the truth is that it has always been like this.’’
Read the full report here.
The Israeli hostages released on the first day of the ceasefire
Three women held captive for 471 days by Hamas were released as part of a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian militant group.
Romi Gonen, 24
Romi Gonen was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in southern Israel on 7 October, 2023. That morning, Gonen’s mother, Merav, and her eldest daughter spent nearly five hours speaking to Gonen as militants marauded through the festival grounds. Gonen told her family that roads clogged with abandoned cars made escape impossible and that she would seek shelter in some bushes before she was taken hostage and held by Hamas for 15 months.
Her mother Merav Gonen has been one of the most outspoken voices advocating for the return of the hostages, appearing nearly daily on Israeli news programs and traveling abroad on missions.
Emily Damari, 28
Emily Damari is a British-Israeli citizen kidnapped from her apartment on Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a communal farming village hit hard by Hamas’ assault. She lived in a small apartment in a neighbourhood for young adults, the closest part of the kibbutz to Gaza. Militants broke through the border fence of the kibbutz and ransacked the neighborhood.
On Sunday, her mother Mandy released a statement of thanks for supporters “who never stopped saying her name.”
Doron Steinbrecher, 31
Doron Steinbrecher is a veterinary nurse who loves animals, and a neighbour to Damari in Kibbutz Kfar Aza. Steinbrecher holds both Israeli and Romanian citizenship.
On the morning of 7 October, 2023, Steinbrecher called her mother, according to a report by the Associated Press. “Mom, I’m scared. I’m hiding under the bed and I hear them trying to enter my apartment,” her brother, Dor, recalled. She was able to send a voice message to her friends. “They’ve got me! They’ve got me! They’ve got me!” in the moments of her abduction.
Steinbrecher was featured in a video released by Hamas on 26 January, 2024, along with two female Israeli soldiers. Her brother said the video gave them hope that she was alive but sparked concern because she looked tired, weak, and gaunt.
Who were the 90 Palestinian prisoners released on Monday?
Details are starting to emerge about the identities of the freed Palestinians.
Here is what we know so far.
The first batch of those freed included 69 women and 21 teenage boys, from the West Bank and Jerusalem, according to Hamas.
Among those released was prominent detainee Khalida Jarrar, 62.
Jarrar is a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a secular leftist faction that was involved in attacks against Israel in the 1970s but later scaled back militant activities. Since her arrest in late 2023, she was held under indefinitely renewable administrative detention, a widely criticised practice that Israel uses against Palestinians.
“There’s this double feeling we’re living in, on the one hand, this feeling of freedom, that we thank everyone for, and on the other hand, this pain, of losing so many Palestinian martyrs,” she told The Associated Press.
Other detainees released include:
Bushra al-Tawil, a Palestinian journalist jailed in Israel in March 2024. “The wait was extremely hard. But thank God, we were certain that at any moment we would be released,” she told Agence France-Presse.
Shatha Jarabaa, 24, who was arrested over a social media post criticising the “brutality” of Israel’s campaign in Gaza. “I’m very happy! Thank God I’m outside. They treated me very bad in prison. It was horrible,” she told the Guardian.
Ahmad Khsha, 18, who was arrested in January 2024 in Jenin. “They arrested me because my brother died during a shootout in Jenin. After he died, they arrested me. They raided our cells on Saturday before releasing us and threw teargas at us. They tortured us in the cell, every day. They also tortured and mistreated the women.”
Qassem Jaafra, 17, who was given a haircut on his return home.
Updated
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of major developments in Israels war on Gaza after a long-awaited ceasefire came into effect on Sunday.
In the hours since, hostage and prisoner exchanges have been carried out on both sides.
Here is a recap of the latest.
Ninety Palestinian prisoners were released early on Monday as part of the ceasefire deal. Those freed from Israeli prisons included 69 women and 21 teenage boys from the West Bank and Jerusalem, according to Hamas. The prisoners, most of whom were freed from Ofer prison in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, were welcomed by thousands of people celebrating.
It followed the release of three Israeli women held hostage by Hamas in tunnels beneath Gaza, ending a protracted ordeal that began with their abduction by Hamas on 7 October 2023. Among those released was joint British national Emily Damari, 28, who was freed alongside Romi Gonen, 24 and Doron Steinbrecher, 31. The women have been reunited with their mothers after being handed over by International Committee for the Red Cross.
The three are in a “stable condition” and will be monitored for a few days, according to a news conference at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv. A member of the hospital staff, Professor Itai Pessach, said: “I’m happy to report that they are in stable condition. That allows us and them to focus on what is the most important thing for now – reuniting with the families.”
As the fighting ceased, hundreds of aid trucks queued to enter Gaza to deliver supplies to its 2.3 million residents, 90% of whom have been displaced by the conflict, many multiple times.
The World Health Organization says it is ready to pour much-needed aid into Gaza during the Israel-Hamas truce, but that it would need “systematic access” across the territory to do so. Much of the Gaza Strip’s health infrastructure has been destroyed by the more than year-long war.
The first phase of the truce took effect after a three-hour delay during which Israeli warplanes and artillery pounded the Gaza Strip. The last-minute blitz killed 13 people, Palestinian health authorities said. Israel claimed it had struck terrorists although Al Jazeera reported that at least two missiles hit a family travelling on a donkey cart as they tried to return home.
Thousands of displaced Palestinians have started to return home, many to destroyed buildings and homes in ruins. There is no detailed plan in place to govern Gaza after the war, much less rebuild it. Nine in 10 homes have been destroyed as well as schools, hospitals, shops, mosques and cemeteries.
Under the first phase of the ceasefire deal, which is to last 42 days, the militant group has agreed to release 33 hostages including children, women (including female soldiers) and men aged over 50, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
In the second phase, the remaining living hostages are due to be sent back and a corresponding ratio of Palestinian prisoners will be freed, and Israel will completely withdraw from the territory. The specifics are subject to further negotiations, which are due to start 16 days into the first phase.
The third phase will address the exchange of bodies of deceased hostages and Hamas members, and a reconstruction plan for Gaza will be launched. Arrangements for future governance of the strip remain hazy.
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