E-Paper
Gaza: A journey of hope, uncertainty on long road to peace
The war has destroyed large swaths of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its 2 million residents. It has also triggered other conflicts in the region.
Preparations were underway on Sunday to ramp up aid entering the war-battered Gaza Strip under a new ceasefire deal that many are hoping will signal an end to the devastating two-year-long war.
US President Donald Trump and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will on Monday chair a Gaza peace summit in Sharm el-Sheikh set to be attended by world leaders including the head of the UN. The gathering in the Red Sea resort town will bring together “leaders from more than 20 countries”, Sisi’s office said. It will seek “to end the war in the Gaza Strip, enhance efforts to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East, and usher in a new era of regional security”. On Sunday, the Egyptian foreign ministry said a “document ending the war in the Gaza Strip” was expected to be signed during the “historic” gathering.
But for many families, from Israel as well as Palestine, the prisoner-hostage swap brings both hope and uncertainty.
The war began when Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage.
For a Palestinian couple, Monday will hopefully bring back their sons after nearly 34 years.
For families of Israeli hostages, it is about helping their loved ones cope after years in captivity.
Swap brings hope to prisoners’ families
A stone’s throw from the wall separating Israel and the occupied West Bank, the Shamasneh family is ready to welcome home two sons jailed for the past 34 years. Abdel Jawad and Mohammed are expected to be among the Palestinians freed from Israeli detention.
“Today I’m so happy the world feels too small for my joy,” declared their elated mother, 83-year-old Halima Shamasneh.
Halima and her husband Yusef gathered their children and grandchildren in the family home in the West Bank village of Qatanna just north of Jerusalem, to celebrate the news. On the house’s walls, the many photos of the brothers before their arrest have faded in colour. Their clothes reflect the 1980s, the decade in which the two men were arrested. Abdel Jawad is now 62 and Mohammed in his late 50s.
Abdel Jawad’s file shared by Israel in the list of prisoners to be released reads that he was committed to a life sentence for murder, attempted murder and conspiracy. Prisoner release deals between Palestinians and Israelis are often decried by families of murder victims who challenge the deals in the country’s supreme court. The court rejected such a petition on Friday, ruling that “matters of war and peace, including the government’s agreements with the enemy regarding a ceasefire and its conditions, are not judicial”.
There is one cloud of doubt still. If Yusef’s sons are freed, they could be exiled abroad, as sometimes happens to high-profile prisoners. “I hope they come here. I really hope so. If they go abroad, I won’t be able to see them -- neither I nor their mother”, Yusef said.
Stories of captivity
Evyatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal went together to an all-night desert music festival near the Gaza border two years ago. As dawn broke, thousands of rockets flew in from Gaza as armed invaders gunned down 400 of their fellow party-goers. David and Dalal were among the first to be abducted to Gaza.
On Monday, the two friends, now 24, are due to be released along with 18 other hostage believed to be alive, all of them men. Along with relief over the safe return of hostages who are still alive, there’s a sense of closure over the rest.
Kibbutz Nir Oz was one of the hardest hit communities on October 7. Of 76 hostages taken, the last four survivors are now expected to come home. Matan Zangauker, 25, was taken from his home along with his partner, Ilana Gritzewsky, who was held separately and released in November 2023. It was, however, his mother, Einav Zangauker — a divorced, single parent from the Israeli town of Ofakim — who’s become a household name in Israel over the past two years.
Leading the battle for his release, she locked herself in a cage over Tel Aviv’s main highway and became the face of a public campaign, issuing weekly statements and appearing multiple times in the Israeli parliament. A former Benjamin Netanyahu supporter, Zangauker said during the ordeal that the Israeli prime minister “stabbed me in the back twice: on October 7, when my son was kidnapped, and since then to this day.”
Egypt said it was sending 400 aid trucks into Gaza on Sunday. They will be inspected by Israeli forces before being allowed in. AP footage showed dozens of trucks crossing the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with the coastal strip. The Egyptian Red Crescent said they carried medical supplies, tents, blankets, food and fuel.
Expanding Israeli offensives and restrictions on humanitarian aid have triggered a hunger crisis, including famine in parts of the territory.
In Israel’s ensuing offensive, more than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants but says around half the deaths were women and children.
The summit was aimed at inaugurating “a new chapter of peace and security... and alleviating the suffering of the Palestinian people” in Gaza, it said in a statement.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he would attend, as will British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni and Pedro Sanchez of Spain. French President Emmanuel Macron and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will also travel to Sharm el-Sheikh, according to their offices.
A tough walk back home
A message sent on Saturday from Gal Hirsch, Israel’s coordinator for the Hostages and the Missing and obtained by the AP, told hostage families to prepare for the release of their loved ones, starting on Monday morning.
Hirsch said hospitals were ready to receive the live hostages, while the dead will be transferred to the Institute of Forensic Medicine for identification. Timing has not yet been announced for the release of some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel who are to be freed under the deal. They include 250 people serving life sentences in addition to 1,700 people seized from Gaza during the war and held without charge. Dr Mounir al-Boursh, head of the Health Ministry in Gaza, said he hopes the bodies of medical personnel who died in Israeli detention centres will be among those handed over. He called for the release of doctors Hossam Abu Safiya and Marwan al-Hams, detained from Gaza during the war. Palestinians continued to move back to areas vacated by Israeli forces on Sunday, although many were returning to homes reduced to rubble. Satellite photos, taken Saturday and analysed by AP, showed a line of vehicles traveling north to Gaza City on Al Rashid Street, which runs north-south along the strip’s coastline on the Mediterranean Sea. Tents along the coast also could be seen near Gaza City’s marina, where many have been living to avoid being targeted in Israeli bombardment.
The pause in fighting allowed first responders to search previously inaccessible areas for bodies buried under rubble. Health officials said 233 bodies were recovered and brought to hospitals since Friday, when the truce went into effect. Yasser el-Bureis, who was at the morgue in Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, said Sunday he and his relatives had finally retrieved the bodies of his two cousins killed months earlier as they tried to flee their homes.
“For five months, we didn’t manage to recover the bodies,” he said. Hospitals have run short on supplies for both the living and the dead — including body bags.
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said on X that he had instructed the Israel military to prepare to begin destroying the network of tunnels built by Hamas under Gaza “through the international mechanism that will be established under the leadership and supervision of the U.S.” once the hostages are released.
Questions remain
The war has destroyed large swaths of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its 2 million residents. It has also triggered other conflicts in the region, sparked worldwide protests and led to allegations of genocide that Israel denies.
While both Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza welcomed the initial halt to the fighting and plans to release the hostages and prisoners, the longer-term fate of the ceasefire remains murky. Key questions about governance of Gaza and the post-war fate of Hamas have yet to be resolved.
