14/10/2025

TUESDAY | OCT 14, 2025

9

Netanyahu welcomes Trump at Ben Gurion International Airport. – REUTERSPIC

‘GAZA WAR OVER’

o Trump proclaims new beginning CAIRO: Hamas released the last 20 surviving Israeli hostages yesterday under a ceasefire deal, a major step towards ending two years of shattering war in Gaza as President Donald Trump, who helped broker the truce, proclaimed “a new beginning”.

Palestinians gather around Red Cross vehicles transporting hostages. – REUTERSPIC

“I am so excited. I am full of happiness. It’s hard to imagine how I feel this moment. I didn’t sleep all night,” said Viki Cohen, mother of hostage Nimrod Cohen, as she travelled to Reim, an Israeli military camp where the hostages were being transferred. In Gaza, about a dozen masked and black-clad gunmen, apparently members of Hamas’ armed wing, arrived at Nasser Hospital where a stage and chairs had been laid out to welcome returning prisoners. “I hope that these images can be the end to this war. We lost friends and relatives, we lost our houses and our city,” said Emad Abu Joudat, 57, a Palestinian father of six from Gaza City as he watched the handover preparations on his phone. The release of hostages and a concurrent freeing of Palestinian detainees form a critical aspect of the first phase of the ceasefire accord concluded last week in Sharm el Sheikh. Over 20 world leaders will weigh next steps under Trump’s 20-point plan aimed at securing a lasting peace after two years of war. Israeli airstrikes, bombardments

Dozens of buses carrying some of the nearly 2,000 detainees being freed from Israeli prisons as part of the deal arrived in Gaza. Most were detainees taken by Israeli forces during the war in Gaza but the group included 250 prisoners convicted of involvement in deadly attacks or held under suspicion of such security offences. Two years of war have reduced Gaza to a sea of rubble, with nearly all its 2.2 million people homeless. It has also reshaped the Middle East through spillover Israeli conflicts with Iran, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis. Near Israel’s Reim camp, where the hostages will be brought to be taken to hospitals, people lined the road waving Israeli flags. The family of hostage Matan Angrest thanked Trump for his work bringing their son back. “We can breathe again. Our Matan is home!” they said UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said Israel had approved the delivery of more supplies and the main UN aid agency working in Gaza, UNRWA, urged Israel to let it work unhindered. – Reuters

However, much could still go wrong with further steps on which previous truce efforts faltered yet to be agreed. Those include how the tiny, densely populated coastal territory will be governed once fighting ends, and the ultimate fate of Hamas. As he entered the Israeli Knesset (parliament), Trump said Hamas would comply with a provision under his plan for it to disarm. Further sticking points may include Israel’s own continued withdrawal from the Gaza Strip beyond the lines to which it pulled back in recent days, and moves towards the creation of a Palestinian state, something rejected by many Israelis. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will attend the summit, Egypt said yesterday. Trump will become only the fourth US president to address the Knesset, following Jimmy Carter in 1979, Bill Clinton in 1994 and George W. Bush in 2008. Bodies of some of the 26 confirmed dead hostages, and another two whose fate was unknown, will also be released.

The Israeli military said it had received all hostages confirmed to be alive after their transfer from Gaza by the Red Cross, prompting cheering, hugging and weeping among thousands waiting at “Hostage Square” in Tel Aviv. Buses carrying released Palestinians freed from Israeli prisons as part of the accord also arrived in Gaza, said an official. “This is a great day. This is a new beginning,” Trump said after arriving to a hero’s welcome in Israel where he was addressing the Knesset before flying on to Egypt for a summit aimed at building conditions for a lasting peace in Gaza. Asked if the two-year Gaza war was over, he said: “Yes.” Initial photographs of six of the freed Israeli hostages distributed by the Israeli military showed them standing, some smiling and talking with soldiers who were receiving them.

and armoured ground assaults have since devastated Gaza, killing more than 67,000 Palestinians and laying waste to much of the enclave, causing a humanitarian disaster. The Trump administration mediated the agreement along with Egypt, Qatar and Turkiye, with the next phase calling for an international body – a “Board of Peace” – led by Trump. Woman reacts at ‘Hostages Square’ in Tel Aviv. – REUTERSPIC

Released hostage Eitan Abraham Mor (right) at Rabin Medical Centre-Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, Israel. – REUTERSPIC

Families (left) wait in Ramallah for relatives released from an Israeli jail. – REUTERSPIC