Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed Gaza would never again pose a threat to Israel, as a tense calm prevailed on the second day of a truce in the Palestinian territory. 

Three Israeli hostages, all women, were reunited with their families after Hamas fighters handed them over yesterday NZT, followed by the release of 90 Palestinian prisoners from an Israeli jail in the occupied West Bank. 

In the war-battered Gaza Strip, displaced Palestinians set off on foot or by car to return home as trucks loaded with sorely needed humanitarian aid funnelled into the devastated territory. 

The truce mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States began on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration today for a second term as US President. 

In a video message, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Trump for helping to secure the hostage release deal and once more vowed to “return the remaining hostages ... and to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel”. 

Displaced Palestinian Ghadeer Abdul Rabbo, 30, told AFP she hopes that “with or without Trump”, the ceasefire will hold, and that world governments will help to “maintain this calm, because we are afraid”. 

If all goes to plan, the first phase of the truce would last six weeks, during which the parties would negotiate a permanent ceasefire, which has not been agreed yet. 

Despite the risks, hundreds of Palestinians were streaming through an apocalyptic landscape in Jabalia in northern Gaza, one of the worst-hit areas in the war. 

“We are finally in our home. There is no home left, just rubble, but it’s our home,” said Rana Mohsen, 43. 

In Rafah, in the south, Ismail Madi said that “we have endured immense hardships, but we will stay here. We will rebuild this place”. 

In Israel, there was elation and excitement as Emily Damari, Romi Gonen, and Doron Steinbrecher returned home and appeared to be in good health. 

“In Emily’s own words, she is the happiest girl in the world; she has her life back,” Damari’s mother Mandy said, adding that her daughter was “doing much better than any of us could have expected” even after losing two fingers. 

Reunited 

The initial 42-day truce should enable a surge of aid as more Israeli hostages are released in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli custody and as Israeli forces leave some areas of Gaza. 

During the first phase, a total of 33 hostages are to be returned from Gaza in exchange for around 1900 Palestinians. 

The first group of Palestinians released under the deal left Ofer Prison in the West Bank , with jubilant crowds celebrating their arrival in the nearby town of Beitunia. 

Amanda Abu Sharkh, 23, said that they “feel like family to us. They are part of us.” 

One freed detainee, Abdul Aziz Muhammad Atawneh, described prison as “hell, hell, hell”. 

Another, Khalida Jarrar of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – a Marxist movement considered a “terrorist” group by Israel and some Western governments – said prison conditions were harsh and that she had been kept “in solitary confinement for six months”. 

The next hostage-prisoner swap should take place at the weekend, a senior Hamas official told AFP. 

International Committee of the Red Cross president Mirjana Spoljaric called on all sides to “adhere to their commitments to ensure the next operations can take place safely”. 

The relatives of the three Israeli ex-hostages called for the release of the remaining 91 captives seized during Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war, including 34 the military has said are dead. 

Meirav Leshem Gonen, mother of Romi Gonen, said: “We got our Romi back, but all families deserve the same outcome, both the living and the dead.” 

There was anxiety in Israel over the next phases of the truce, with columnist Sima Kadmon warning in the Yedioth Ahronoth daily that the coming hostage releases may be more painful. 

“Some of them will arrive on gurneys and wheelchairs. Others will arrive in coffins. Some will arrive wounded and injured, in dire emotional condition,” she wrote. 

‘Beautiful feeling’ 

Ammar Barbakh, 35, spent the truce’s first night in a tent on the rubble of his former home in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis. 

“This is the first time I sleep comfortably and I’m not afraid,” he said. 

“It’s a beautiful feeling, and I hope the ceasefire continues.” 

The war has devastated much of the Gaza Strip and displaced the vast majority of its population of 2.4 million, but Hamas vowed that they would “rise again” and “rebuild what the occupation has destroyed”. 

United Nations relief chief Tom Fletcher said 630 aid trucks had entered into Gaza in the hours after the start of the truce, with 300 of them headed to the north of the territory. 

Qatar said that 12.5 million litres of fuel would enter Gaza over the first 10 days of the truce. 

The World Food Programme said it was “trying to reach a million people” as quickly as possible. 

AFP journalists said Hamas police and security forces were operating again in Gaza City, some in fatigues and others dressed in black, despite Israel’s stated goal of dismantling the group’s governance capabilities. 

The war’s only previous truce, for one week in November 2023, also saw hostages released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and a surge in humanitarian aid. 

Hamas’ October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures. 

The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said that the death toll in the war between Israel and Hamas had reached 46,913. 

– Agence France-Presse