In Jerusalem, small crowd celebrates hostages’ release outside PM’s residence

In Jerusalem, at the protest tent outside the official Prime Minister’s Residence on Balfour Street, a crowd of about 200 erupts into cheers after hostages released from Gaza are seen for the first time.

A large TV screen broadcasting the hostage release is set up inside a tent where countless protests have been held over the past two years. Outside the immediate area, Azza Street is quiet, even after serving as the epicenter of the city’s protests throughout that period. Many pedestrians are seen walking back from morning prayers on the last day of the Sukkot holiday.

Not everyone in the crowd is overjoyed by the hostage release, however.

“I feel very good today, but it’s not enough that all the hostages come back,” says Yosef Avi Yair Engel, whose grandson, Ofir Engel, spent 54 days in Hamas captivity in Gaza. “We are still waiting for the body of Yossi Sharabi, the father of my grandson’s girlfriend. Until the bodies of all the dead hostages come back, I cannot be too happy.”

Several meters away, a clown juggles and hands out stickers to passersby. “After two years of struggle, for the end of the war, I had to come out to add to the happiness of all the beating hearts out here,” says the clown, who goes by the name Policewoman Then-Maybe and has been a fixture at protests wearing her old-fashioned police uniform and red nose. “I follow my heart, and it’s good to be with people who are smiling, after everything we’ve gone through.”