Crowds erupt in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square as captives arrive back in Israel
After a tense afternoon, thousands cheer and hug as Jerusalem confirms Doron Steinbrecher, Emily Damari and Romi Gonen are in Israeli hands
Roughly 2,000 people crowded into the plaza known as Hostages Square in Tel Aviv Sunday afternoon to watch the return of the three hostage women who were the first to be freed under the current ceasefire deal.
The hushed crowd watched news coverage on a large screen throughout the afternoon, waiting for any sign that the hostage release would go ahead.
Tension was palpable as those gathered watched masked Hamas gunmen in Gaza City trying to control crowds of people who had gathered to see the three hostages being handed over to the Red Cross.
At the first glimpse of the hostages in the back of a Hamas car in Gaza, surrounded by Hamas gunmen, the onlookers in Tel Aviv burst into a brief moment of applause and cheering before falling silent again. The three looked frightened amid the gunmen and the roiled crowd. They weren’t in the clear yet.
After Jerusalem confirmed that Doron Steinbrecher, Emily Damari and Romi Gonen were in Israeli hands, the crowd erupted, this time with far greater relief.
“They are in our hands. They are coming home,” IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a press conference.
As the news came that the hostages were back in Israel, a strand of yellow balloons, whose color represents solidarity with the hostages, was released into the air, where it curled into the shape of the ubiquitous yellow ribbon.
A video later released by the Israeli military showed the families of the three screaming, jumping for joy and crying as they watched their relatives returning home.
From time to time as they watched the news broadcast on a large screen in the square, the crowd broke out in chants demanding Israel bring back “everyone — now!”
After the three women were released, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said: “Their return today represents a beacon of light in the darkness, a moment of hope and triumph of the human spirit. For their families and for all of us, this is a moment that will be forever etched in our memory.
“Their return reminds us of our profound responsibility to continue working toward the release of everyone — until the last hostage returns home.”
The hostage-ceasefire deal caps a protracted international effort to get both Hamas and Israel to agree to an accord to halt the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack and free the remaining hostages. The first phase of the three-phase accord provides for a total of 33 captives to be released over 42 days in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Several tense hours preceded the start of the ceasefire, with Hamas twice missing deadlines to hand over the list of hostages to be freed Sunday, and Israel refusing to halt its fire until the terror group produced the names, raising concerns of the deal faltering before even going into effect.
Of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas during the October 7, 2023, invasion and massacre in southern Israel, 91 are now believed to remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 40 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the body of an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014. The body of another IDF soldier, also killed in 2014, was recently recovered from Gaza in a clandestine Israeli military operation.
