JERUSALEM/CAIRO: Hamas freed the last 20 surviving Israeli hostages on Monday under a US-brokered ceasefire deal, a big step towards ending two years of shattering war in Gaza as President Donald Trump proclaimed the "historic dawn of a new Middle East".
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.
Palestinian prisoners and detainees freed by Israel as part of the accord arrived in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, their heads shaved and some looking very thin.
"The skies are calm, the guns are silent, the sirens are still and the sun rises on a Holy Land that is finally at peace," Trump was due to tell the Knesset (Israeli parliament) in a speech before flying on to Egypt for a summit aimed at building conditions for an enduring peace in Gaza.
However, formidable obstacles remain even to a resolution of the Gaza conflagration, let alone to the wider, generations-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict or other long-standing schisms running through the Middle East.
FOLLOW-UP SUMMIT TO ADDRESS GAZA'S FUTURE
The release of hostages and Palestinian detainees was a pivotal aspect of the first phase of the Gaza accord concluded last week in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where Monday's summit will take place.
Over 20 world leaders will weigh next steps under Trump's 20-point blueprint for peace two years after the October 7, 2023 cross-border Hamas assault that killed 1,200 people with 251 taken hostage, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Israeli air strikes, bombardments and armoured ground offensives have since devastated Gaza, killing more than 67,000 Palestinians, the enclave's health officials say, and laying waste to much of the enclave, causing a humanitarian disaster.
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 Palestinian 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.
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