Some shout with joy, others burst into tears on “Hostage Square” in Tel Aviv late Sunday afternoon at the announcement of the release of three Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip, on the first day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
“I can’t explain… sorry,” apologizes Roni Tarnovyski, a 23-year-old journalist before bursting into tears at the foot of one of the giant screens installed at this place, a mecca for the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of people. ‘Israelis for the release of people taken hostage during the unprecedented attack by the Islamist movement Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023.
“It’s simply overwhelming, it’s a feeling that we haven’t felt for over a year,” adds the young woman, friend of Emily Damari, released with Romi Gonen, and Doron Steinbrecher. “I just hope it continues and they all come back because we can’t leave anyone on the other side.”
“I had to be there, to see it live, to understand that this is happening […] finally,” says Tel Aviv resident Hagar Drake. It’s crucial “to be here, all together for this moment,” adds the 34-year-old with a radiant smile.
During a long wait, the crowd that had formed during the afternoon held its breath while televisions announced on the screens the imminence of the liberation.
Hundreds of worried gazes stare at screens showing masked armed fighters from Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, attempting to control another crowd, gathered in Gaza City to watch the handover of hostages to the Red Cross.
As soon as the three silhouettes of the young women held in the Gaza Strip appeared passing from a Hamas car to an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) 4×4, a wave of applause greeted them.
“Breathe, for a moment”
In the middle of phones filming the scene, some people are crying bitterly and others are stamping their feet in exultation.
-The cheers resumed when Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, army spokesperson, confirmed that the three young women had finally arrived in Israel after 471 days of captivity.
In Jerusalem, Israeli President Isaac Herzog chose to go to the Western Wall – one of the holiest places in Judaism – just before the liberation to pray for the three women.
Hailing “a ray of light in the darkness, a moment of hope […] which will remain forever engraved in our memory”, the Families Forum, the main Israeli association of relatives of hostages, estimates in a press release that the return of the three young women “reminds us of the deep responsibility that is ours to continue to work for the release of all, until the last hostage returns home.
Next to the screens in the “Place des Hostages”, a large clock displays every second that has passed since the hostage taking. The numbers continue to roll in for the more than 90 hostages still held in the Gaza Strip.
While waiting for their release under the truce, Gal Handberg, 28, enjoys “a moment of relief”. “We can finally breathe, for a moment”
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