After being reunited with their families, the three women hostages who were freed on Sunday were brought to a hospital in central Israel, where a physician reported that their health was stable.

A few hours later, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Israeli-released Palestinian detainees boarded busses and arrived in the adjacent town of Beitunia at around 1:00 am (2300 GMT Sunday), where they were greeted by joyous crowds.

On Sunday morning, hundreds of war-weary and displaced Palestinians left the ravaged Gaza Strip to return home as the truce went into force.

Hundreds of people poured down a sandy route in the northern part of Jabalia, toward a post-apocalyptic scene filled with debris and demolished structures.

“We’ve arrived at our house at last. Back in Jabalia, 43-year-old Rana Mohsen remarked, “It’s our home, but there is nothing left but rubble.”

Mediators from Qatar, the United States, and Egypt mediated the first 42-day truce.

As additional Israeli captives are freed in return for Palestinians held by Israel, Israeli soldiers withdraw from some regions, and the parties negotiate the conditions of a lasting truce, it is intended to allow a flood of desperately needed humanitarian aid into Gaza.

The three Israeli ex-hostages, Emily Damari, Romi Gonen and Doron Steinbrecher, were taken back to Israel by security forces after Hamas fighters handed them over to the Red Cross in a bustling square in Gaza City, surrounded by a sea of people, including gunmen.

“After 471 days Emily is finally home,” said her mother Mandy Damari, but “for too many other families the impossible wait continues”.

Steinbrecher’s family said in a statement that “our heroic Dodo, who survived 471 days in Hamas captivity, begins her rehabilitation journey today”.

In central Tel Aviv, there was elation among the crowd who had waited for hours for the news of their release.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum campaign group hailed their return as “a beacon of light”, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said they had emerged “from darkness”.

During this initial truce, 33 Israeli hostages, 31 of whom were taken by militants during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, are due to be returned from Gaza in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians.

Of those, more than 230 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences for deadly attacks against Israelis are slated for deportation, according to a list made public by Israeli authorities. Two Hamas officials said the prisoners would be deported mainly to Qatar or Turkey.

The Israel Prison Service confirmed the release of 90 prisoners early Monday.

In Beitunia, near Ofer prison, crowds cheered and chanted as buses carrying the freed inmates arrived, with some climbing atop and unfurling a Hamas flag. Others set off fireworks.

“All the prisoners being released today feel like family to us. They are part of us, even if they’re not blood relatives,” Amanda Abu Sharkh, 23, told AFP.

The next hostage-prisoner swap would take place on Saturday, a senior Hamas official told AFP.

– ‘Nothing left’ –

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 truce is intended to pave the way for a permanent end to the war, but a second phase has yet to be finalised.

It came into effect nearly three hours later than scheduled, and during the delay, Gaza rescuers said Israeli bombardment killed 19 people.

Thousands of Palestinians carrying tents, clothes and their personal belongings were seen going home on Sunday, after the war displaced the vast majority of Gazans, in many cases more than once.

Returning Jabalia resident Walid Abu Jiab said he found “massive, unprecedented destruction”, with “nothing left” in Gaza’s war-battered north.

In Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, Umm Hasan al-Buzom, 70, said she would even “crawl my way back home” if needed.

“But we can’t return for fear that the (Israeli) occupation forces might shoot at us.”

Aid workers say northern Gaza was particularly hard hit, and lacked all essentials including food, shelter and water.

The World Health Organization said it was 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”.

– ‘Commitment’ –

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.

Before the war, Gaza’s population stood at 2.4 million people.

On the eve of the truce, Netanyahu called the first phase a “temporary ceasefire” and said Israel had US support to return to the war if necessary.

Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said its adherence to the truce would be “contingent on the enemy’s commitment”.

The war’s only previous truce, for one week in November 2023, also saw the release of hostages held by militants in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas’s October 7 attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history, resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Of the 251 people taken hostage, 91 are still in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

The truce took effect on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration for a second term as US president.

Trump, who claimed credit for the ceasefire deal, said on US television network NBC that he had told Netanyahu the war “has to end”.