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OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners on Monday after Hamas handed over three Israeli hostages, completing the first exchange under a long-awaited truce aimed at ending more than 15 months of Israeli war on Gaza.

The three hostages released Sunday, all women, were reunited with their families and taken to hospital in central Israel where a doctor said they were in stable condition.

Hours later in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian prisoners released by Israel left Ofer prison on buses at around 1:00 am (2300 GMT Sunday), with jubilant crowds celebrating their arrival in the nearby town of Beitunia.

As the ceasefire took effect on Sunday morning, thousands of displaced, war-weary Palestinians set off across the devastated Gaza Strip to return home.

In the northern area of Jabalia, hundreds streamed down a sandy path, heading to an apocalyptic landscape piled with rubble and destroyed buildings.

"We are finally in our home. There is no home left, just rubble, but it's our home," said Rana Mohsen, 43, back in Jabalia.

The initial 42-day truce was brokered by Qatari, US and Egyptian mediators.

It is meant to enable a surge of sorely needed humanitarian aid into Gaza, as more Israeli hostages are released in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli custody, Israeli forces leave some areas and the parties negotiate the terms of a permanent ceasefire.

 'Nothing left' 

Minutes after the truce began, the United Nations said the first trucks carrying desperately needed humanitarian aid had entered the Palestinian territory.

"It is imperative that this ceasefire removes the significant security and political obstacles to delivering aid," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

The truce is intended to pave the way for a permanent end to the war, but a second phase has yet to be finalised.

It came into effect nearly three hours later than scheduled, and during the delay, Gaza rescuers said Israeli bombardment killed 19 people.

Thousands of Palestinians carrying tents, clothes and their personal belongings were seen going home on Sunday, after the war displaced the vast majority of Gazans, in many cases more than once.

Returning Jabalia resident Walid Abu Jiab said he found "massive, unprecedented destruction", with "nothing left" in Gaza's war-battered north.

In Deir El Balah, in central Gaza, Umm Hasan al-Buzom, 70, said she would even "crawl my way back home" if needed.

"But we can't return for fear that the [Israeli] occupation forces might shoot at us."

Aid workers say northern Gaza was particularly hard hit, and lacked all essentials including food, shelter and water.

The World Health Organization said it was ready to pour aid into Gaza but that it would need "systematic access" across the territory to do so.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus later said on X that "restoring the health system in Gaza will be a complex and challenging task, given the scale of destruction".

 'Commitment' 

Another UN agency, the World Food Programme, said it was moving full throttle to get food to as many Gazans as possible.

"We're trying to reach a million people within the shortest possible time," the WFP's deputy executive director, Carl Skau, told AFP.

Before the war, Gaza's population stood at 2.4 million people.

On the eve of the truce, Netanyahu called the first phase a "temporary ceasefire" and said Israel had US support to return to the war if necessary.

Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, said its adherence to the truce would be "contingent on the enemy's commitment".

The war's only previous truce, for one week in November 2023, also saw the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

DAMASCUS — The mother of US journalist Austin Tice, who went missing in Syria in 2012, said on Monday in Damascus that the war-torn country's new leadership was committed to finding him.

Tice was working as a freelance journalist for Agence France-Presse, McClatchy News, The Washington Post, CBS and other media outlets when he was detained at a checkpoint in August 2012.

"I have been privileged to meet with the new leadership of Syria," Debra Tice told journalists in Damascus, after holding talks with Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.

"It was so wonderful to learn that they are dedicated and determined to bring home my son, and your son," she added.

She expressed hope the incoming administration of Donald Trump, who takes office as US president later on Monday, will work to bring her son home.

"Today... Trump will be sworn into office and a page will be turned," she said.

"I have great hope that the Trump administration will be very engaged in diligent work to bring Austin home.

"I look forward to working closely with the team, including National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Special Presidential Envoy Adam Logan."

Debra Tice said she was "looking forward" to engaging with the Trump administration.

"His people have already reached out to me," she said.

"I haven't experienced that for the last four years, and so I'm very much looking forward to their help and involvement, and I think they're going to be quick at it."

Last month, US officials said Syria's new leadership had assisted in the hunt for Tice, including searches at sites of interest.

"We feel it's our duty as the US government to press on until we know with certainty what happened to him, where he is and to bring him home," said Roger Carstens, the US point man on hostages.

He made the remarks during the first visit to Damascus by US officials since Islamist-led forces toppled autocratic Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

JERUSALEM — As Israel prepares to welcome home the first of 33 hostages freed under a ceasefire with Hamas, health workers warn of the psychological challenges they face after their 15 months in captivity.

Nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are also set to be released as part of the agreement that took effect on Sunday.

Of the 251 hostages taken during Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war, 94 remained in Gaza as the ceasefire began, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

During a 42-day first phase of the ceasefire, Palestinian militants are due to free 33 hostages, starting with three women.

Throughout the war, there has been only one other pause in the fighting,  a week-long truce in November 2023 that also saw the exchange of hostages for prisoners.

Amir Blumenfeld, a former chief of the Trauma branch of the Israeli army, said hostages released during that truce had suffered serious health issues.

"After 50 days of captivity, the hostages suffered from many physical and psychological problems," said the physician, a member of the health team of the Hostage Families Forum support group.

"This time, after [more than 470 days of detention], it's going to be horrible," he said, predicting drastic weight loss of up to "half or a third" of original body weight.

 Haunted by captivity

Blumenfeld said the time it would take to heal from the physical injuries and ailments would vary from patient to patient, though he expected their recovery would ultimately be satisfactory.

But, he added, "the most difficult problem will be mental health".

Ilana Gritzewsky, freed during the November 2023 truce, described how a video released by Hamas of her partner, still held by the militant group, threw her back into her own ordeal.

She said she lost 11 kilos (24 pounds) during nearly two months in captivity.

"I also endured abuse. I was burned, lost partial hearing in my left ear, and dislocated my jaw," she told AFP.

"I was sexually harassed during the abduction" and "still suffer from the consequences", she added.

A December Israeli health ministry report sent to the United Nations highlighted testimonies of torture, including beatings, brandings, sexual assault, food deprivation and solitary confinement.

It said many former hostages now suffer from symptoms of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and survivor's guilt.

Under health ministry guidelines, the newly released hostages will be hospitalised for at least four days, with women undergoing pregnancy tests and psychiatric care being made available immediately.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — A ceasefire in the Gaza war will begin Sunday morning at 0630 GMT, mediator Qatar said on Saturday after Israel's cabinet voted to approve the truce and hostage-prisoner release deal.

The exact time of the ceasefire's start had been unclear, though Israel had said no Palestinian prisoners held by Israel would be freed before late Sunday afternoon.

Qatar and the United States, which mediated the deal along with Egypt, had announced it on Wednesday and said it would take effect Sunday.

Following that announcement, Israeli bombardment of the territory killed at least 113 people, Gaza's civil defence rescue agency said on Friday.

On Saturday, AFP photos showed Palestinians in the southern city of Khan Yunis mourning four members of a family killed in another Israeli strike.

Explosions were heard over Jerusalem Saturday morning after warning sirens blared and the military said a projectile had been launched from Yemen, whose Iran-backed rebels say they support the Palestinians.

"As coordinated by the parties to the agreement and the mediators, the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will begin at 8:30 am on Sunday, January 19, local time in Gaza," Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said on X.

"We advise the inhabitants to take precaution, exercise the utmost caution, and wait for directions from official sources."

In more than 15 months of Israeli war on Gaza, there has been only one previous truce, for one week, in November 2023. That deal also saw the release of hostages held by the militants in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

"The government has approved the hostage return plan," the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said early Saturday after the cabinet held its vote. 

Netanyahu's office said the deal "supports achieving the objectives of the war".

Israel's justice ministry said 737 Palestinian prisoners and detainees will be freed as part of the first phase of the deal -- none before 4:00 pm local time (1400 GMT) on Sunday. 

Trump 

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, announcing the agreement on Wednesday, said an initial 42-day ceasefire would see 33 hostages released by militants in Gaza.

The truce is to take effect on the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration for a second term as United States president. 

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas said the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has completed preparations "to assume full responsibility in Gaza" after the war.

Israel has no definitive stance on post-war governance beyond rejecting any role for both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. 

Outgoing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Gaza should be under PA control.

Even before the truce begins, displaced Gazans were preparing to return home.

"I will go to kiss my land," said Nasr Al Gharabli, who fled his home in Gaza City for a camp further south. "If I die on my land, it would be better than being here as a displaced person."

In Israel, there was joy but also anguish over the remaining hostages taken in the Hamas attack.

Kfir Bibas, whose second birthday falls on Saturday, is the youngest captive.

Hamas said in November 2023 that Kfir, his four-year-old brother Ariel and their mother Shiri had died in an air strike, but with the Israeli military yet to confirm their deaths, many are clinging to hope.

Israel's cabinet endorsement of the deal came despite eight ministers voting against it, including far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

Hamas's armed wing warned that continued Israeli strikes risked the lives of hostages and could turn their "freedom... into a tragedy".

Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered the war and resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Of the 251 people taken hostage, 94 are still in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory campaign has destroyed much of Gaza, killing 46,876 people, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

Aid-starved 

Mediators had worked for months to reach a deal but the efforts were fruitless until Trump's inauguration neared.

Brett McGurk, the pointman for outgoing President Joe Biden, was joined in the region by Trump envoy Steve Witkoff in an unusual pairing to finalise the agreement, US officials said.

On Friday, Qatar's Sheikh Mohammed said: "We seek a full implementation of the first phase, and for the second phase to be the final.

"We are waiting for the Security Council to issue a binding resolution to implement the agreement."

Israeli authorities assume the 33 captives to be released in the first phase are alive, but Hamas has yet to confirm that.

Also in the first phase, Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza's densely populated areas and allow displaced Palestinians to return "to their residences", the Qatari prime minister said.

An Israeli military official said reception points had been established at Kerem Shalom, Erez and Reim, where hostages would be joined by doctors and mental health specialists before being "transported via helicopter or vehicle" to hospitals in Israel.

Israel "is then expected to release the first group of Palestinian prisoners, including several with high sentences", a source said on condition of anonymity.

During talks on Friday, negotiators agreed to form a joint operations room in Cairo to "ensure effective coordination" and compliance with the truce terms, Egyptian state-linked media reported.

Biden said the second phase could bring a "permanent end to the war".

In aid-starved Gaza, humanitarian workers caution a monumental task lies ahead.

On Friday, British lawmakers warned that Israeli legislation banning the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, threatens the truce deal. The ban on the main aid agency in Gaza is to take effect by the end of January.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said it intercepted two missiles fired from Yemen on Saturday, a day before a ceasefire is set to take effect in war-battered Gaza.

The military activated air raid sirens in Jerusalem and in parts of central and southern Israel ahead of the interceptions during the day, with the first projectile shot down in the morning.

Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels claimed the morning attack, hours after the Israeli military intercepted the incoming missile.

The Huthis "carried out a specific military operation targeting the so-called Ministry of Defence of the Israeli enemy... using a ballistic missile" in central Israel, the rebels said in a statement.

The morning attack had triggered explosions over Jerusalem as the military intercepted the missile, AFP journalists reported.

Later, sirens blared across southern Israel as a second missile was fired from Yemen and intercepted by the Israeli air force, the military said.

"Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in the areas of Eilat and Arava, a missile that was launched from Yemen was intercepted" before crossing into Israeli territory, it said.

The latest launches from Yemen came as a ceasefire in the war in Gaza would take effect from 0630 GMT on Sunday.

The Huthis have repeatedly launched missile and drone attacks on Israel since the war in Gaza broke out in October 2023.

On Friday, the Yemeni rebels warned they would keep up their attacks if Israel did not respect the terms of the ceasefire with Hamas.

The Huthis, part of Iran's "axis of resistance", have attacked commercial shipping in the Red Sea throughout the war in Gaza, claiming solidarity with the Palestinians.

In December, 16 people were wounded in Tel Aviv in one of their attacks on Israel.

In response, Israel has struck Huthi targets in several air raids, including in the rebel-held capital Sanaa.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanon's new president said on Saturday that Israel must withdraw from his country's south by the January 26 deadline set to fully implement an Israel-Hizbollabh ceasefire agreed last year.

His remarks follow a speech by Hizbollabh leader Naim Qassem who accused Israel of hundreds of ceasefire violations, warning it against testing "our patience" and calling on the Lebanese state to be "firm" in its response.

President Joseph Aoun told visiting United Nations chief Antonio Guterres that it was necessary for "Israeli forces to withdraw from occupied territories in the south within the deadline set by the agreement reached on November 27".

"Israel's continued violations on land and in the air... blowing up homes and destroying border villages, completely contradicts what was stated in the ceasefire agreement," a statement from Aoun's office added.

Under the November 27 ceasefire deal, which ended two months of all-out war between Israel and Hizbollabh, the Lebanese army has 60 days to deploy alongside peacekeepers from the UNIFIL mission in south Lebanon as the Israeli army withdraws.

At the same time, Hizbollabh is required to pull its forces north of the Litani River, around 30 kilometres from the border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure it has in the south.

'Occupation' 

Earlier on Saturday, Qassem had called "on the Lebanese state to be firm in confronting violations, now numbering more than hundreds. This cannot continue".

"We have been patient with the violations to give a chance to the Lebanese state responsible for this agreement, along with the international sponsors, but I call on you not to test our patience," he said in a televised speech.

Qassem's speech came as Guterres met top Lebanese officials including prime minister-designate Nawaf Salam and Aoun -- the former army chief who has vowed that the state would have "a monopoly" on bearing weapons.

Analysts say Hizbollabh's weakening in the war with Israel allowed Lebanon's deeply divided political class to elect Aoun and to back him in naming Salam, who was presiding judge at the International Criminal Court, as prime minister.

But Qassem insisted Hizbollabh and ally Amal's backing "is what led to the election of the president by consensus", after around two years of deadlock.

"No one can exploit the results of the aggression in domestic politics," he warned. "No one can exclude us from effective and influential political participation in the country."

After his meeting with Aoun on Saturday, Guterres expressed hope that Lebanon could open "a new chapter of peace". 

On Friday, Guterres had called for Israel to end its military operations and "occupation" in the south.

He also said UN peacekeepers had found more than 100 weapons caches belonging "to Hizbollabh or other armed groups".

French President Emmanuel Macron was also in Lebanon on Friday and said there must be "accelerated" implementation of the Israel-Hizbollabh ceasefire.

GAZA, Palestinian Territories — Gaza's civil defence agency said Thursday that Israel has pounded several areas of the Palestinian territory since the announcement of a ceasefire deal, killing at least 73 people and wounding hundreds.

"Since the ceasefire agreement was announced, Israeli occupation forces have killed 73 people, including 20 children and 25 women," agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP, adding that another 230 people were wounded in the "bombardments that are continuing", a day after the truce announcement.

Israel's cabinet was expected to meet Thursday to approve a ceasefire and hostage-release deal with Hamas, Israeli media reported, a day after mediators announced an agreement they hope will lead to a permanent end to the Gaza war.

Meanwhile, an initial World Health Organization assessment said that at least $10 billion will likely be needed to rebuild Gaza's devastated health system over the next five to seven years.

"The needs are massive," the UN health agency's representative in the Palestinian territories, Rik Peeperkorn, told reporters. The initial assessment of the cost to rebuild just the health sector was "for even more than $3 billion for the first 1.5 years and then actually $10 billion for the five to seven years."

The chief of the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees called on Wednesday for "rapid and unhindered" aid access to Gaza after Israel and Hamas agreed on a ceasefire deal.
"What's needed is rapid, unhindered and uninterrupted humanitarian access and supplies to respond to the tremendous suffering caused by this war," Philippe Lazzarini, chief of UNRWA, wrote on X.

Mediator Qatar said Wednesday that Israel and Hamas had agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza starting on Sunday and a hostage and prisoner exchange after 15 months of war.
Thirty-three Israeli hostages will be released in the first phase of the agreement that could become a "permanent ceasefire", Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani said.
"The two belligerents in the Gaza Strip have reached a deal on the prisoner and the hostage swap, and (the mediators) announce a ceasefire in the hopes of reaching a permanent ceasefire between the two sides," he said.
"We hope that this will be the last page of the war, and we hope that all parties will commit to implementing all the terms of this agreement," the prime minister added.

Joint mediators Qatar, the US and Egypt will monitor the ceasefire deal through a body based in Cairo, Sheikh Mohammed said, urging "calm" in Gaza before the agreement comes into force.
"We hope that over the next few days there will not be any aggressions or any military operations," he said.
There was "a clear mechanism to negotiate phase two and three", and that the details of the agreements would be published "in the next couple of days, once the details are finalised", Sheikh Mohammed added.