200 for 2,000: Trump's peace bargain for Gaza

US President Donald Trump told the Israeli parliament, Knesset, on Monday that the ceasefire he helped negotiate in the Gaza war had marked the "historic dawn of a new Middle East." He said, "And after so many years of unceasing war and endless danger, today the skies are calm, the guns are silent, the sirens are still, and the sun rises on a holy land that is finally at peace, a land and a region that will live, God willing, in peace for all eternity."

Before Trump addressed the the Israeli parliament, Israeli hostages were relased by Hamas even as Israel began releasing nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. The hostage exchange is the central part of the deal Trump has helped broker between Isarel and Hamas after two years of war triggered by a Hamas attack on Israel, killing more than a thousand while Hamas kidnapped 251. Israel and Hamas accepted the initial phase of Trump's proposal for the Palestinian territory, involving a ceasefire and hostage agreement that could potentially resolve the two-year conflict disrupting the Middle East. Trump remembered the horrors of October 7, 2023, and said US will "never forget" the attack on Israel, vowing there would be "never again", something like that.

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200 Israelis for 2,000 Palestinians
Hamas released all 20 remaining living hostages held in Gaza on Monday, while Israel began releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

Cheering crowds greeted buses of prisoners in the West Bank, while families and friends of the hostages gathered in a square in Tel Aviv, Israel, cried out with joy and relief as news arrived that the captives were free. The hostages, all men, have arrived back in Israel, where they will reunite with family and undergo medical checks. The bodies of the remaining 28 dead hostages are also expected to be handed over as part of the deal, although the exact timing remained unclear.

Buses carrying dozens of freed Palestinian prisoners arrived in Beitunia, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, and in the Gaza Strip, the Hamas-run Prisoners Office said, as Israel began releasing nearly 2,000 prisoners and detainees as part of the ceasefire deal.

The releases have powerful resonance on both sides. For Israelis, they’re deeply painful, since some of those being release have been convicted over attacks that killed civilians and soldiers. For Palestinians, the issue of prisoners is among the most politically charged, with nearly every Palestinian having a friend or family member who has been jailed by Israel, particularly young men. While Israel views them as terrorists, many Palestinians consider the prisoners as freedom fighters resisting a decades-long Israeli military occupation.

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The 2,000 Palestinian prisoners include some 1,700 of the several thousand Palestinians that Israeli troops seized from Gaza during the 2-year war and have held without charge.

Those slated for release also include 250 Palestinians sentenced to prison terms, most of them convicted of murder and terrorism in deadly attacks on Israelis dating back decades as well as others convicted on lesser charges, according to Israel’s Justice Ministry. The longest serving among them has been imprisoned for nearly 40 years.

Among Palestinian prisoners being relased is Raed Sheikh, a Palestinian police officer who took part in the October 12, 2000, lynching of IDF reservists Vadim Norzhich and Yossi Avrahami after they accidentally entered the West Bank city and were taken into police custody, as per a Times of Israel report. The rioters eventually stormed the building and murdered the two Israelis, mutilating their bodies and later parading them around Ramallah’s city center. Norzhich’s brother, Michael, called the terror convict’s pending release “inconceivable,” noting it is so close to the 25th anniversary of his sibling’s murder.

The list of Palestinian prisonersbeing released also includes Iyad Fatafta, a 47-year-old Fatah member serving a life sentence, who was one of two men convicted of murder for stabbing American tourist Kristine Luken and a friend who was hiking with her and survived.

The list does not include the roughly half dozen highest profile prisoners, including Marwan Barghouti, Hassan Salameh, Ahmed Saadat and Abbas Al-Sayyed. Barghouti is widely seen as a potential successor to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Israel had warned people in the West Bank against celebrating — as has frequently happened in past releases, a Palestinian Authority official and the family of a prisoner told AP. In neighborhoods where prisoners’ families live, Israeli forces distributed fliers warning that “anyone who participates in such activities exposes himself to punishment and arrest,” the official said.

However, hundreds cheered as two buses carrying dozens of released prisoners arrived in Beitunia in the West Bank. The freed men, with their heads’ shaved, descended from the bus, flashing V-for-victory signs; some were lifted up onto the shoulders of the crowd, while others sunk into chairs nearby exhausted.

(With inputs from agencies)