By means of Avi (JO:) Ohio

SDEROT, Israel (Reuters) – Hundreds of Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, some cheering and others crying, as a giant television screen broadcast the first look at the first three hostages released under the Gaza ceasefire deal.

They watched as the three women – Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari – got out of a car in Gaza City and were handed over to Red Cross officials amid a surging crowd held back by Hamas gunmen.

The Israeli military shared video showing their families gathered at what appeared to be a military facility crying with emotion as they watched footage of the surrender by Israeli forces in Gaza before they were taken back to Israel .

“Their return today represents a beacon of light in the darkness, a moment of hope and triumph of the human spirit,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group representing some hostage families said.

The release of the three women, the first of 33 hostages to be released from Gaza under the first phase of the deal, was in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons.

The hostages were taken in one of the most traumatic episodes in Israel’s history, when Hamas gunmen attacked a string of communities around the Gaza Strip in the early hours of October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 civilians and soldiers and kidnapped 251 hostages – men, women, children and old people.

But amid hopes among many Israelis that the six-week ceasefire marks the beginning of the war’s end, there is deep concern about the uncertainty surrounding the remaining 94 hostages still being held in the Gaza Strip.

“The cease-fire is something I hope will happen,” said Tomer Mizrahi, in Sderot, a city in southern Israel that came under Gaza attack on October 7. “But as far as I know Hamas, no you can trust them even one percent.”

Images of Hamas police appearing in the streets as the cease-fire took effect underscored how far Israel has come from the originally declared war aimed at destroying the Islamist group that has ruled Gaza since 2007.

“I was torn apart,” said Dafna Sharabi from Beit Aryeh-Ofarim, a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank. “On the one hand there is a ceasefire to strengthen the forces, to take a break from all the madness, on the other hand, maybe it’s not the time,” he said.

“They should have been eliminated, wiped out,” he said. “My son was in reserve duty for a year there, a whole year, and he saw all the Gazans returning, Hamas returning its forces to all the places it was fighting. “

MEN OF MILITARY AGE ARE NOT IN THE DEAL

After 15 months of war, Gaza is largely in ruins. The Israeli campaign has killed nearly 47,000 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian health ministry and displaced most of the two million people living in the enclave.

But for many in Israel, the war will not end as long as Hamas stands still and there have been a series of rallies denouncing the ceasefire as a trade-off that leaves military-age men in captivity, without the first batch of 33. hostages.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has resigned and his fellow hardliner Bezalel Smotrich also opposed the deal and said he had been assured it would not be the end of the war.

The Israel Democracy Institute says that the most recent Israeli Voice Index, conducted before the agreement, found that 57.5% of Israelis are in favor of a comprehensive agreement that would find all the hostage back to return at the end of the war. A further 12% support a partial hostage release in exchange for a temporary ceasefire.

Amidst the mix of emotions, for some, the feeling of exhaustion outweighs any anxiety about the future.

“We’ve been waiting for this for a long time. We want it to be a total victory, I hope we get a total victory, if not now then later,” said Shlomi Elkayam who owns a business in Sderot. “There are pros and cons, but in the end we are tired of everything. We are tired and we want everyone here at home.”