Residents of Gaza felt the extent of the destruction of their old neighborhoods, and Israelis waited for news of the three newly released hostages one-day ceasefire between Hamas and Israel continued on Monday.

With the 15-month war on hold, Palestinians are returning to the parts of the Gaza Strip they fled, fighting their way through the vast rubble and trying to salvage what they can – a couch, a mattress, a chair or a chest – from the ruins of their former homes.

“People can barely recognize the destroyed places where they used to live,” said Montaser Bahja, an English teacher, a day after visiting his old neighborhood in the northern city of Jabaliya.

In a video shared with The New York Times, Mr. Bahja, 50, can be seen rushing through the streets with his son Alhassan, 21, trying to reconcile the piles of rubble towering on either side with his memories.

“This is the home of Fahmy Abu Warda; this is Abu Shaaban’s home,” Alhassan is heard saying.

In Israel, which celebrated the return of the first group of hostages freed by Hamas as part of the ceasefire, authorities offered only the broadest descriptions of their conditions. Israel’s health ministry and the Sheba Medical Center, where the three women are staying in a closed wing with family members, said their primary obligation was to protect the former prisoners’ privacy while they received medical and psychological care.

“I am happy to report that they are in a stable condition,” said one of their doctors, Prof. Itai Pessach. “This allows us and them to focus on what is most important right now: reuniting with our families.”

But the Israelis heard from one of the women on Monday.

“I’m back in life,” Emily Damari (28) said on social media, describing herself as “the happiest person in the world.”

Ms. Damari was one of about 250 people taken hostage in the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023. About a hundred are believed to still be in Gaza, and about a third of them are believed to be dead. Militants also killed about 1,200 people that day, Israel says.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, Hamas agreed to release 33 hostages in exchange for the release of more than 1,000 Palestinians from Israeli prisons. The return of the three hostages was followed by the release of 90 prisoners, and exchanges would take place once a week during the 42-day truce.

Palestinians in Gaza were looking forward to a break in the fighting. Gaza health officials say more than 47,000 people have been killed during an Israeli assault that began after a 2023 Hamas attack; they do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

But the scenes that unfolded in the enclave and in Israel on Monday epitomized the bittersweet emotions felt on both sides of the border.

As the ceasefire took effect on Sunday, celebrations were replaced by explosions and hundreds of aid trucks began rolling into Gaza, where residents have endured a difficult year of hunger and deprivation. In Israel, the returned hostages were greeted with joyful hugs from relatives and friends. And fireworks and cheering crowds greeted the newly freed Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

But the joy was overshadowed by uncertainty. The next round of talks between Hamas and Israel is expected to be even more difficult than those that led to the 42-day ceasefire.

The fate of more than 60 other hostages and thousands of other Palestinian prisoners in Israel, to say nothing of the prospect of a long-term cessation of hostilities, depends on the extension of the agreement.

“This is a moment of tremendous hope — fragile but vital,” Tom Fletcher, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said on social media.

The joy is also tempered by expectations of protracted hardship and the knowledge that there is still no comprehensive plan for how Gaza will be rebuilt. Many of the two million inhabitants there have been displaced at least once,

The task ahead is unimaginably terrifying.

Gazans returning to the southern city of Rafah found it largely leveled. The mayor said that 60 percent of the homes were destroyed, as well as 70 percent of the city’s sewage system.

But after 15 months of hunger and shortages, food and other vital supplies are now pouring into Gaza. More than 630 trucks entered the enclave on the first day of the ceasefire, according to United Nations officials.

During the fighting, far fewer succeeded – and when they did, it was often too dangerous to get help where it was needed. Israel’s military campaign has retaliated against Hamas without replacing it, creating a power vacuum. As the enclave sank into lawlessness, desperate mobs and organized gangs rushed the trucks in the hope of securing a parcel of food or a bag of flour.

On Sunday and Monday, the scenes were not repeated.

“What was very visible was that none of the trucks that came in yesterday were looted,” said Nebal Farsakh, a spokeswoman for the Palestinian Red Crescent, a humanitarian aid organization.

But violence broke out in the West Bank, where Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian villages amid anger over the planned release of Palestinian prisoners, some convicted of deadly attacks on Israelis, in a ceasefire deal.

In Sinjil, a village south of Nablus, dozens of men, some carrying slingshots, threw stones and set fire to houses, according to statements from residents and video footage verified by The Times.

“People were screaming as their houses burned,” said one resident, Ayed Jafry, 45. Several people were injured, including an 86-year-old man, he said.

After the Hamas attack that started the Gaza war, Israeli leaders vowed to wipe out the militants once and for all. But in the first two days of the ceasefire, Hamas has made it clear that it intends to remain the main force in the territory.

In an interview with The Times, Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk suggested that at least some senior members of the group hope to engage in “dialogue” with the United States, even though the US government has designated it a terrorist organization since 1997.

Mr Abu Marzouk, who is in Qatar, said Hamas was ready to welcome an envoy from the Trump administration despite a long-standing US policy of supplying Israel with weapons and defending it in international institutions.

“He can come to see the people and try to understand their feelings and desires,” he said of the envoy, “so that the American position can be based on the interests of all sides, not just one side.”

They contributed to the report Error Yazbek, Nathan Odenheimer, Fatima Abdul KarimandAfif Amireh.