As mediators helped avert a ceasefire collapse. the three Israelis were led onto a stage with Palestinian Hamas militants armed with automatic rifles standing on each side of them at the site in Khan Younis, live footage showed, before they were taken into Israel by Israeli forces, Reuters reported.

Shortly afterwards, the first bus carrying freed Palestinian prisoners and detainees departed Israel s Ofer jail in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, live footage showed. The bus arrived in Ramallah to a cheering crowd, some waving Palestinian flags.

The swap of the three Israelis for the 369 Palestinians eased fears that the ceasefire agreement could collapse before the end of the 42-day first stage of a ceasefire deal in effect since January 19.

In what has become known as Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, people broke into cheers and tears when they heard the Red Cross was on its way to deliver the three to Israeli military forces in the Gaza Strip.

They appeared relieved to see that the trio was in apparently better physical condition than another three freed last week who appeared emaciated and weak.

Residents of Israeli kibbutz communities near the Gaza border lined the road cheering and waving Israeli flags as the vehicles carrying the hostages out of Gaza passed by.

Dekel-Chen, a U.S.-Israeli, Troufanov, a Russian Israeli, and Horn, whose brother Eitan was also abducted, were seized in Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of the communities around the Gaza Strip that was overrun by Hamas gunmen on October 7, 2023.

Some of the dozens of masked Islamist Hamas fighters deployed at the handover site carried rifles seized from the Israeli military during the October attack, Hamas sources said.

On the handover stage in Khan Younis, the hostages were made to give short statements in Hebrew and militants presented one of them, Iair Horn, with an hourglass and photo of another Israeli hostage still in Gaza and his mother, reading "time is running out (for the hostages still in Gaza)".