Live Updates: Gaza Cease-Fire Appears to Take Hold
The first stage of a truce between Israel and Hamas prompted celebrations in Gaza and hope for an end to the 15-month war. Three Israeli hostages were expected to be released on Sunday, along with dozens of Palestinian prisoners.
A long-awaited agreement between Israel and Hamas for a cease-fire and hostage release went into effect on Sunday morning, prompting celebrations in Gaza, relief for families of Israeli captives and hope for an end to a devastating 15-month war.
Joyful Palestinians honked car horns and blasted music in the central Gaza city of Deir al Balah, where celebratory gunfire rang out and children ran around in the streets. In Israel, the father of a hostage whom Hamas said would be among three released later on Sunday gave thanks in a Facebook post and said a Jewish blessing.
Achieving the agreement on a delicate, multistage cease-fire required months of talks mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States. The start of an initial, six-week phase on Sunday was delayed by almost three hours, with Israel saying it had not formally received the names of the first three hostages to be released.
During the delay, the Israeli military continued striking in Gaza. The Palestinian Civil Defense, an emergency service, said that at least 19 people had been killed and more than three dozen were wounded in the attacks. It wasn’t possible to confirm the figures independently. The truce finally came into effect at 11:15 a.m. local time (4:15 a.m. Eastern), and in the first several hours no additional attacks were reported in Gaza.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an Israeli group representing family members of captives in Gaza, identified the three people that Hamas was expected to release on Sunday as Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher, all of whom were captured during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks in Israel that set off the war.
Israel was expected to release 90 Palestinian prisoners, all women or minors, on Sunday in exchange for the first three hostages. The exact timing and other details of the releases were not immediately clear.
Here’s what we’re covering:
Hostage and prisoner releases: Israel and Hamas have agreed to observe a 42-day truce, during which Hamas is expected to stagger the release of 33 of the roughly 100 hostages it still holds, some of whom are believed to be dead. In exchange, Israel is expected to begin releasing more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
Gaza’s destruction: The start of the cease-fire capped a 470-day war that has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians and injured more than 110,000 others, according to the Gaza health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Much of Gaza has been destroyed, and most of its roughly two million people have been displaced at least once by the war, which began after Hamas invaded southern Israel, killing roughly 1,200 people and capturing 250 hostages.
Humanitarian aid: United Nations trucks carrying humanitarian supplies began entering Gaza just 15 minutes after the cease-fire took effect, according to Jonathan Whittall, the head of the U.N. humanitarian office for the Palestinian territories. The cease-fire deal calls for 600 trucks to be allowed to bring aid to Gazans daily, although it was not clear how the supplies would be distributed.
Next phase: Big diplomatic hurdles lie ahead. Israel and Hamas reached the cease-fire agreement in part by putting off their most intractable disputes until a nebulous “second phase” that neither side is sure it will reach.
Israel is expected to release 90 Palestinian prisoners, all women or minors, on Sunday in exchange for the first three hostages. Israel’s Prison Service said that it had received the list of prisoners and will transfer them to a gathering point at the Ofer detention center in the occupied West Bank, where their identities will be verified by the Red Cross. After Hamas hands over the Israeli hostages, the Red Cross will take the prisoners to designated areas to be released.
President-elect Donald J. Trump welcomed the cease-fire, writing on his Truth Social site: “Hostages starting to come out today! Three wonderful young women will be first.” Envoys of both the departing Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration were instrumental in achieving the deal. Trump had warned that there would be “all hell to pay” if the hostages were not released by his inauguration tomorrow.
In Israel, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s far-right party announced earlier on Sunday that it had left Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition in opposition to the cease-fire. Ministers from his party, Jewish Power, submitted their resignation letters as Ben-Gvir slammed the deal as “reckless.” The resignations had been expected, and were not expected to collapse Netanyahu's government.
Palestinians celebrating on Sunday morning in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.Credit...Mohammed Salem/Reuters
As a truce took hold on Sunday in Gaza, potentially ending the longest and deadliest war in a century of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, two men used the same metaphor to describe how they felt.
“The weight on my chest has lifted,” said Ziad Obeid, a Gazan civil servant displaced several times during the war. “We have survived.”
“The rock lying on my heart has been removed,” said Dov Weissglas, a former Israeli politician. “We want to see the hostages home, period.”
But — both men also had a “but” — Mr. Obeid has not seen his damaged house in northern Gaza for more than a year. How bad, he wondered, is the damage? And who will rebuild a decimated Gaza?
Mr. Weissglas worried about the condition of the hostages set to be freed gradually over the next few weeks from dank quarters in the territory. And he grimaced about exchanging them for hundreds of Palestinian detainees, many of whom are serving life sentences for attacks on Israelis. “There is relief,” he said, “wrapped in caution, fears and concern.”
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A rally was held on Saturday night in Tel Aviv for the return of the hostages held in Gaza.Credit...Amit Elkayam for The New York Times
It was an apt summary of the mood on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide on Sunday, as Israelis and Palestinians expressed feelings of elation tinged with doubt.
For Palestinians, the truce is theoretically expected to provide at least six weeks without strikes on Gaza. That offers a window for Gazans to take tentative first steps toward reconstruction; to find relatives still buried in the rubble; and to come to terms with the killing of more than 45,000 people, both civilians and combatants, whose bodies have already been counted by the Gazan health authorities.
For Israelis, the deal allows for the gradual release of at least 33 of the hostages captured during Hamas’s raid on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 — an attack that killed up to 1,200 people and provoked Israel’s devastating 15-month response. For the hostages released alive, that means freedom after 470 days of captivity. For Israelis at large, many of them wracked by a form of survivors’ guilt, it offers qualified catharsis.
But the details of the deal between Israel and Hamas mean that both sides still face considerable uncertainty about how the next six weeks will play out, let alone about whether the tentative arrangement will later become permanent. Even the first phase started hours behind schedule on Sunday morning, amid disputes about which hostages would be released in the afternoon. In that time, according to the Gazan authorities, Israeli strikes killed and wounded yet more people.
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Displaced Palestinians trying to return home on Sunday in northern Gaza.Credit...Mahmoud Al-Basos/Reuters
Palestinians remain unclear about the fates of several thousand Gazans detained incommunicado during the war and who may not be released during the upcoming exchanges. Reema Diab, a housewife in central Gaza, still has no away of locating her husband, a horse trainer, who she said was taken for interrogation in Israel in December 2023 and never heard from since.
“I’m relieved the bloodshed is coming to an end, but my heart aches,” Ms. Diab said. “His absence is unimaginable.”
A few dozen miles away, Mr. Weissglas feared for the fates of some 65 hostages who may not be released from Gaza if the deal collapses after six weeks. He worried that many of the initial 33 hostages set to be released over the next 42 days may be emotionally or physically scarred, or even dead. And he lamented the cost of their freedom, which will be obtained in exchange for Palestinian detainees, including those convicted of major terrorist attacks as well as teenagers who have never been charged.
Palestinians see the soon-to-be released prisoners as freedom fighters. For Israelis, it will be a psychological blow to see “this stream of murderers being released,” Mr. Weissglas said.
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Israelis looking at the ruins of Beit Hanoun, Gaza, from a hill in Sderot, Israel, on Sunday.Credit...Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
Videos of Hamas fighters re-emerging in triumph from hiding was also a gut-punch for Israelis, who had hoped the war would completely destroy the group’s military abilities. For many Gazans, it was a sight to be celebrated, but for others, it was a reminder of lingering uncertainty about Gaza’s future governance.
Mr. Obeid works for the Palestinian Authority, which lost power to Hamas in Gaza 18 years ago but which still employs some civil servants there, including Mr. Obeid. He said he had been working with the authority’s leaders in the West Bank to plan potential cleanup and reconstruction operations in Gaza in the coming days. It is unclear, he said, whether that will be possible with Hamas still in charge over the next six weeks.
But that is tomorrow’s challenge, Mr. Obeid said.
For now, he said, “I can breathe oxygen again.”
Bilal Shbair contributed reporting from Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, and Aaron Boxerman from Jerusalem.
The start of the cease-fire in Gaza halted a 470-day war that has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians and injured more than 110,000 others, according to the Gazan health ministry’s latest figures, which do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Some bodies are still trapped under rubble and on roads across the territory, with ambulances and rescue teams unable to reach them, the ministry said in a statement. As the truce takes hold, residents and rescue workers will begin to return to those areas and the toll of the war may become clearer.
U.N. trucks carrying humanitarian supplies began entering Gaza just 15 minutes after the cease-fire took effect, according to Jonathan Whittall, the head of the U.N. humanitarian office for the Palestinian territories. He said “a massive effort” had taken place over the past days to prepare for “a surge of aid across all of Gaza” under the cease-fire deal.
Tom Fletcher, the U.N. emergency relief coordinator, called on “countries with influence over Israel, Hamas and armed groups who have attacked our trucks to insist that we are able to get this lifesaving aid to those who need it.”
Since the cease-fire took effect this morning, 202 trucks carrying aid, including five hauling fuel, have moved from Egypt to Kerem Shalom, according to the Egyptian government. Kerem Shalom is a border crossing between Israel and Gaza where most of the aid destined for southern Gaza has entered the territory since May.
Posters of Emily Damari, left, and Doron Steinbrecher, in Tel Aviv on Friday.Credit...Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
Hamas on Sunday released the names of three hostages to be freed in the first phase of the cease-fire agreement with Israel. The three, all women, were expected to be released later on Sunday.
About 100 hostages, living and dead, are thought still to be held captive in Gaza, most of them taken in the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Thirty-three of them will be released during an initial six-week phase of the cease-fire, including female soldiers and civilians, children, men over 50 and sick and wounded people, according to the agreement.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an Israeli group representing family members of the captives, identified the first three hostages to be released on Sunday. Here is what we know about them:
Romi Gonen
Ms. Gonen, was 23 when she was captured as she was trying to leave the Nova music festival in southern Israel when Hamas attacked. She was speaking at the time to her mother, Meirav Gonen, who she said she had been shot and was bleeding.
Last February, Meirav Gonen released a recording of her last phone call with her daughter. She told Israeli news media that Romi was a strong and happy person who often went to raves.
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Romi Gonen was captured as she was trying to leave the Nova festival in southern Israel. Credit...Michael Reynolds/EPA, via Shutterstock
In the early weeks of the war, her mother expressed concern that Israeli military operations in Gaza could endanger the hostages.
Romi Gonen’s older sister, Yarden, told The New York Times in February that she regularly went to a plaza in Tel Aviv where families of hostages have held vigils.
“None of us is doing anything remotely related to our previous lives,” she said.
Emily Damari
Ms. Damari, 27 at the time she was captured, is the only hostage with British citizenship still being held. She was taken from her home in Kibbutz Kfar Azza in southern Israel and was seen by a neighbor in her own car, driven by a militant, heading toward Gaza.
Ms. Damari was raised in Israel but traveled to Britain often, according to her mother, British-born Mandy Damari, who was in Israel in December to speak with officials and the news media and to plead for a hostage and cease-fire deal. She said her daughter had been shot and that she feared for her life, telling the BBC that she had welcomed the threats from President-elect Donald J. Trump that there would be “all hell to pay” if no deal was reached by his inauguration.
Last January, in January, a hostage who had been released from Gaza, Dafna Elyakim, told Israeli news media that she and her younger sister had been taken into Hamas’s underground tunnels, where they met other female hostages including Ms. Damari.
On the eve of the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks, Mandy Damari spoke at an event in Hyde Park in London, where she described her daughter as a soccer fan who enjoyed a drink and had “the classic British sense of humor, with a dash of Israeli chutzpah thrown in for good measure.”
Doron Steinbrecher
Ms. Steinbrecher, who was 30 when she was captured from her home in Kibbutz Kfar Azza, is a veterinary nurse with Romanian and Israeli citizenship. According to Israeli news media, she was in touch with her family on the kibbutz when the militants attacked, telling her parents that they had smashed her windows and shot into her room.
“They’ve arrived, they have me,” she said in a subsequent voice message sent to friends.
Last January, Hamas released a video clip of Ms. Steinbrecher and two other captives, Daniella Gilboa and Karina Ariev, in which they pleaded for their release.
Last March, on her 31st birthday, the Jewish News Syndicate published an interview with her mother, Simona Steinbrecher, who said that she had looked pale and thin in the video. She said she was concerned that Ms. Steinbrecher was not getting the daily medication she needed, though she did not specify what that was.
“She’s a strong woman, but it’s terrible being there,” Simona Steinbrecher said.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an advocacy group representing family members of Israelis held in Gaza, said in a statement that it “welcomes the exciting news that Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari are expected to be released later today. We await their safe return to Israel to be reunited with their families.”
Bilal Shbair
Reporting from central Gaza
In Deir al Balah in central Gaza, cars were honking and blasting music in the first hour of the cease-fire as celebratory gunfire rang out and children ran around in the streets. A coffee shop I frequent in town is playing music again: an early sign of relative normalcy.
The Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, Wafa, reported that Israeli forces had raided the homes In East Jerusalem of several Palestinian prisoners who are expected to be released under the cease-fire agreement. It said they had ordered prisoners’ families to avoid celebrations and gatherings upon their release.
Just before the cease-fire had been scheduled to take effect, the Israeli military and the Shin Bet intelligence agency announced that the body of an Israeli soldier, Sgt. Oron Shaul, had been recovered from Gaza. Sergeant Shaul was killed in 2014 and his body had been held in Gaza since.
Prime Minister Netanyahu said in a statement that Sergeant Shaul’s remains had been recovered in a special operation before the cease-fire was to start. “We will continue and work to recover all of our abductees — both the living and the dead,” he said.
Smoke was still billowing over northern Gaza on Sunday.Credit...Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
It took more than a year to negotiate a cease-fire in Gaza, and as the final minutes ticked down before it was scheduled to go into effect on Sunday morning, the truce was still clouded by doubt.
Under the terms of the deal reached last week, Hamas was to have supplied the Israeli government with the names of three hostages it would release. But by 8:30 a.m. local time, or 1:30 a.m. Eastern, the moment the cease-fire was set to begin, Israel said those names had still not formally been delivered.
Hamas said the delay was because of technical reasons, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office instructed the Israeli military not to proceed with preparations for starting the cease-fire until the names had been received.
The Israeli military also warned people in Gaza not to approach parts of the enclave where Israeli troops remained stationed.
While the delay unfolded, Israel’s strikes on Gaza continued. Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for the Israeli military, delivered a televised statement at 8:30 a.m., saying the military would continue attacking in Gaza as long as the cease-fire had not come into effect. A spokesman for the Israeli military, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that it had struck targets in Gaza after the proposed start time for the truce.
Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defense, an emergency service organization in Gaza, said in a statement around an hour later that Israeli bombardments were still occurring in several areas. He would eventually say that Israeli attacks had killed at least 19 people and injured more than three dozen others across Gaza during the delay, a figure that could not be independently verified.
At Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza, people heard the sounds of Israeli drones, strikes and artillery shelling, said Ghada al-Kurd, 37. “The situation is still dangerous,” she said in a voice message.
Then, at about 10:30 a.m. local time, Hamas announced the names of the three Israeli hostages it would release on Sunday. Mr. Netanyahu’s office soon confirmed that information and said the cease-fire would come into effect at 11:15 a.m. local time — nearly three hours later than planned.
The Palestinian Civil Defense has updated its figures of the number of people killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza during the nearly three-hour delay in the start of the cease-fire. Mahmoud Basal, the emergency services group’s spokesman, said that at least 19 people had been killed and more than three dozen wounded. It wasn’t possible to confirm the figures independently.
Displaced Gazans have been hurrying back to check on their homes in the north. Many were forced to evacuate the area when the Israeli military launched renewed operations there. Cities in northern Gaza have been left mostly destroyed by the war, and some of those returning do not know if their homes still stand.
The main United Nations agency that aids Palestinians, UNRWA, said that it had 4,000 trucks of supplies, including food and flour, ready to enter Gaza. The cease-fire agreement calls for 600 trucks to be allowed to bring aid to Gazans daily, but it is not clear how it will be distributed.
The family of Romi Gonen, an Israeli hostage in Gaza, confirmed that she is one of the three captives expected to be released later on Sunday. “Romi is coming home!” her father, Eitan Gonen, wrote in a Facebook post in Hebrew, including a Jewish blessing.
The other two hostages expected to be released later Sunday are Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher, according to the list provided by Hamas and a person familiar with the matter.
The Hamas-run police force in Gaza said in a statement that it would deploy officers immediately after the cease-fire comes into effect in all areas of Gaza. It urged people to be careful when returning to their homes and residential areas and to beware of “suspicious objects, dangerous waste and unexploded bombs.”
Celebrations began in Gaza City even before the cease-fire took effect. Some of those marking the day were members of Gaza’s Civil Defense teams, who have been carrying out difficult rescue operations, responding to near-daily Israeli strikes over the 15 months of war with few resources. A number of them were killed on duty.
Mahmoud Basal, the spokesman for Palestinian Civil Defense, an emergency services organization in Gaza, said that 13 people had been killed across the territory in Israeli attacks during the nearly three-hour delay in the start of the cease-fire.
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CreditCredit...Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
At Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza, the sound of Israeli drones, strikes and artillery shelling were heard even 15 minutes before the cease-fire took effect, said Ghada al-Kurd, 37. “The situation is still dangerous,” she said in a voice message, adding: “We hope that by the end of today, the situation will get better.”
The cease-fire was due to come into effect at 11:15 a.m. local time (4:15 a.m. Eastern), the Israeli prime minister’s office said in a statement issued after Israel received the list of three female hostages to be released later today.
Israel has received the names of the three hostages that Hamas expects to release later today, according to two Israeli officials, meaning that the cease-fire will likely come into effect after a two-hour delay. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue. One said the hostages’ families would need to give permission before the names can be released.
Even as the cease-fire was delayed, parts of Gaza appeared to be safe enough for people to start returning and surveying the damage. Ahmad Soufi, the mayor of Rafah in southern Gaza, said in a statement that according to initial estimates, 30 municipal buildings and four major hospitals were out of service.
Ninety percent of residential areas were “wiped out in several neighborhoods” of Rafah, he said. The southern city was “a tragic scene of destruction and devastation, and has been turned into rubble and ruins as a result of the Israeli aggression.”
On social media, Hamas announced the names of the three Israeli hostages it was expected to release later today: Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher. An Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue, said that Israel had not formally received the names from Hamas.
Israel expects that it will soon receive the names of three female hostages who are expected to be released on Sunday, according to an Israeli official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. Once the names are received, the cease-fire would formally begin.
Awad Abed, a displaced taxi driver living in Khan Younis, said that Gazans had poured onto the streets to celebrate when the cease-fire had been scheduled to start, but were now beginning to feel anxious. “We aren’t sure yet — has it totally fallen apart? Will it stick together?” he said by phone.
Mr. Abed said he hoped to return to the northern city of Jabaliya with his wife and young children, but that he had no idea whether his house was still standing. They have been living in tents for months.
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