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From a ridge on the western edge of Sderot, the ruins of Gaza loom. Less than a kilometre separates the Israeli town and the outskirts of the Palestinian territory, but after 471 days of war, the other side of the fence from Sderot’s shrubby green dunes resembles a dystopian parallel universe.
A few minutes before a long-awaited ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict was supposed to begin at 8.30am local time (0630 GMT) on Sunday, the morning quiet was shattered by an Israeli airstrike on Beit Hanoun, the Gaza town visible from the ridge.
The Guardian last visited Beit Hanoun three days before the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. The area’s many orchards were full of guava and the last of the season’s pomegranates. In the fields, though, something unusual was taking place: units of Hamas fighters were conducting drills, in full view of farmers around them and Israeli drones above. The purpose of the training exercise would become devastatingly clear a few days later, changing the region and the world for ever.
Fifteen months on, all that remains of Beit Hanoun is black smoke rising above white rubble. And yet, amid so much death, pain and destruction, Sunday’s ceasefire has suddenly made it possible that the twin nightmares that Israel’s hostage families and the people of Gaza are living through can finally end.
“I left my heart at home, in the north. I’ve been whispering to my heart every day, ‘I will come back home,’” said teacher Asma Mustafa, from Gaza City, who now lives with her two daughters in Nuseirat refugee camp.
“I lost everything: my car, my house, my job, my money. I don’t eat well, I don’t sleep well, I don’t drink clean water, I can hardly find food … I can’t believe I have survived. I feel like I have written a line in the history of Palestine,” the 38-year-old said.
Mustafa has counted the days she has been living in a tent: 115 since she and her children fled encroaching Israeli ground troops for the fifth time, ending up in the relative safety of Nuseirat in central Gaza. Her story is repeated many times over: 90% of the strip’s 2.3 million population has been displaced from their homes, and nearly 47,000 people have been killed. Those who have died of hunger, lack of shelter and the collapse of the healthcare system have not yet been counted towards the official toll.
The friends and families of the Israeli hostages, too, have been keeping track of the days since the unprecedented Hamas attack in which 1,200 people were killed and another 250 taken hostage.
Ofakim, 29, a school friend of Emily Damari, the British-Israel woman who was among three female captives who returned home on the first day of the ceasefire and hostage deal, was waiting at a bus stop in Sderot on Sunday afternoon with a sticker on her shirt reading “471”. She held a large placard with a picture of Damari, smiling and wearing a white hat, that she was taking to a protest in Jerusalem.
“I’m overjoyed Emily is coming home. I hope it goes OK, we are not there yet and I won’t believe it until I see her,” she said, in the hours before the Israeli military confirmed the Red Cross had transferred the first batch of hostages to its custody.
“It’s not over until every single hostage comes home. We must continue to be their voices,” she added.
Ten million people across Israel and Palestine waited anxiously on Sunday morning after a statement from Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that the truce would not begin until Hamas sent the names of the three female captives scheduled to be released later in the day, as promised.
Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip killed at least 13 people over the next few hours, before news began to spread that the deal was back on: the list had been delivered, naming Damari, 28, Romi Gonen, 24, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31, as the first hostages to be freed. Netanyahu announced the ceasefire would begin at 11.15.
Late on Sunday afternoon, the army shared footage of the families in an operations room as they watched a livestream of their daughters being met by Israeli soldiers. The dozen or so individuals sobbed, and one woman screamed with joy, as 15 months of agony came to an end.
Damari and Steinbrecher were seized on 7 October 2023 from their homes in the Kfar Aza kibbutz, and Gonen was abducted from the nearby Nova musical festival. The only sign of life from any of the three women since they were captured had been a video released by Hamas in January 2024, in which Steinbrecher appeared in a tunnel, her face gaunt from lack of food.
Some people in Gaza, unaware of the delay in implementing the ceasefire, began celebrating early on Sunday. Men, women and children cried and sang, handing out sweets, and began packing up their belongings to return to devastated homes, residents said. By the afternoon, after the ceasefire officially began, the mood across the strip was exultant.
Staff at al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, in the central town of Deir al-Balah, came outside to join the festivities. They said the hospital had not received a single casualty for more than 10 hours – the longest stretch of time without an admission since the war began.
As night fell, East Jerusalem and the West Bank prepared to celebrate, too, as families of the 90 women and children due to be released from Israel’s jails in exchange for the three hostages gathered excitedly in Ramallah to receive them.
“I am feeling so many things,” said Nasser Qudeimat, 34, an accountant from Deir al-Balah whose home was destroyed; he and his family have lived in a tent since December last year.
“I am so happy I don’t have to worry at night any more about how to keep my children safe … But I don’t know what kind of life I can give them now.”
Whether the complex three-stage deal will hold long enough for international mediators to broker a permanent ceasefire to the war after the first six-week phase is not yet clear.
For some Israelis, ending the war at this stage is not a welcome thought: Netanyahu has repeatedly said that Israel’s goal is to completely eradicate Hamas, and questions remain over whether the prime minister is really willing to withdraw from the strip, given the immense pressure to retain military control there from Israel’s right wing.
Shalom Ido, 62, the director of the memorial that has been built on the remains of Sderot police station, where Hamas and Israeli forces fought a fierce battle on 7 October 2023, lost his cousin and a niece in the attack.
“We will only find out if this is a good idea as time goes by,” he said. “Of course it is good the hostages are coming home. But we are very afraid something like this will happen again.”
Palestinians fear this may only be a temporary respite; Israelis fear the ceasefire agreement as it stands could mean Hamas remains in control in Gaza. But on Sunday, at least, there was widespread relief across the Middle East at the diplomatic breakthrough after a war that has destabilised the region, dragging in Iran and its allies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, and caused such widespread destruction in the Gaza Strip that the UN says it will take 350 years for the territory to recover under the current circumstances.
For the families of the returned hostages, there was only joy. The Guardian met Yarden Gonen, 30, the sister of newly freed Romi Gonen, last year. Romi should have been released in the previous ceasefire and hostage release deal that collapsed after a week in November 2023; speaking a few months later, Yarden said she was struggling with the idea that her sister may not come home.
“I know it sounds crazy, but I know she’s there. I can feel her. I know she’s alive and she will come back,” Gonen said at the time. On Sunday night, her faith was rewarded when Romi, smiling, stepped out of a military jeep on to Israeli soil, to be held once again in her family’s waiting arms.
Quique Kierszenbaum contributed reporting
