“WE WILL REBUILD”
Displaced Gazan Ghadeer Abdul Rabbo, 30, told AFP she hopes that “with or without Trump”, the ceasefire will hold and world governments will help “maintain this calm, because we are afraid”.
If all goes to plan, during the initial, 42-day phase of the truce that began Sunday, a total of 33 hostages are to be returned from Gaza in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians.
Over those six weeks, the parties are meant to negotiate a permanent ceasefire.
In Rafah, in southern Gaza, Ismail Madi said that “we have endured immense hardships, but we will stay here. We will rebuild this place.”
Three Israeli hostages, all women, were reunited with their families on Sunday after more than 15 months in captivity.
Hours later, 90 Palestinian prisoners were released from an Israeli jail.
In Israel, there was elation as Emily Damari, Romi Gonen and Doron Steinbrecher returned home and appeared to be in good health.
“In Emily’s own words, she is the happiest girl in the world; she has her life back,” Damari’s mother Mandy said on Monday, adding that her daughter was “doing much better than any of us could have expected” even after losing two fingers.
The first group of Palestinians released under the deal left Ofer prison in the West Bank early Monday, with jubilant crowds celebrating their arrival in the nearby town of Beitunia.
One freed detainee, Abdul Aziz Muhammad Atawneh, described prison as “hell, hell, hell”.
Another, Khalida Jarrar of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – proscribed as a “terrorist” group by Israel and some Western governments – said prison conditions were harsh and that she had been kept “in solitary confinement for six months”.
