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GAZA: Hamas and Israel have swaped prisoners on the first day of the ceasefire to the 15-month-old war that has left Gaza in ruin and inflamed the whole Middle East.
According to a foreign news agency, Hamas released three Israeli hostages and in return Israel set free 90 Palestinian prisoners on Sunday.
The truce allowed Palestinians to return to bombed-out neighborhoods to begin rebuilding their lives, while relief trucks delivered much-needed aid. Elsewhere in Gaza, crowds cheered Hamas fighters who emerged from hiding.
Fireworks were launched in celebration as buses carrying the Palestinian prisoners arrived in Ramallah on the West Bank, where thousands of people waited to welcome them. Those freed from Israeli prisons included 69 women and 21 teenage boys from the West Bank and Jerusalem, according to Hamas.
In Tel Aviv, hundreds of Israelis cheered and wept in a square outside the defense headquarters as a live broadcast from Gaza showed three female hostages getting into a Red Cross vehicle surrounded by Hamas fighters.
The Israeli military said Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari had been reunited with their mothers and released a video showing them in apparent good health. Damari, who lost two fingers when she was shot the day she was abducted, smiled and embraced her mother as she held up a bandaged hand.
“I would like you to tell them: Romi, Doron and Emily – an entire nation embraces you. Welcome home,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a commander by phone.
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