As jubilant crowds swell, families and friends mark final minutes before expected release with nervous excitement

Crowds in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square and along roads in southern Israel near the Gaza Border are swelling as the expected release of a first batch of hostages nears.

Around the country, friends and relatives not traveling to the Reim base prepare celebrations to mark the return of the hostages.

The friends of Evyatar David mark the moment with shirts bearing his image and take shots of liquor, while in the Haifa suburbs, the friends of Matan Angrest and his family gather expectantly, according to footage from Channel 12.

“When we heard the news, we got the shirts ready, we got everything ready to greet Matan — finally!” says one friend of the family.

Hagai Angrest, Matan’s father, tells Channel 12, as he gets into the family car to drive to Re’im, that they will continue fighting until all the hostages, alive and dead, are home.

Galit Kalfon, mother of hostage Segev Kalfon, tells Channel 12 that she still can’t believe he is coming home.

“I woke up happy and I hope to remain so until I see Segev,” she says. “I keep imagining the moment I tell him that everything is okay and he is with us.”

Kalfon speaks from the van that is carrying the family to the Re’im base. She says that they do not know in what condition Segev will be.

“[The authorities] did not prepare us for his situation,” she says.

The family of hostage Eitan Mor also does not know anything about Eitan’s condition, his grandmother Peskia tells Channel 12 from her home, expressing “great joy and gratitude to the Holy One Blessed be He.”

“For two years, the army has told us that he is alive; this is what we have known,” she says. “One hostage who came back from captivity said he saw him, but it was a long time ago, and after that, we only know what the army intelligence told us.”