The truce allowed Palestinians to return to bombed-out neighborhoods to begin rebuilding their lives, while relief trucks delivered much-needed aid. Elsewhere in Gaza, crowds cheered Hamas fighters who emerged from hiding, Reuters reported.
Fireworks were launched in celebration as buses carrying the Palestinian prisoners arrived in Ramallah on the West Bank, where thousands of people waited to welcome them. Those freed from Israeli prisons included 69 women and 21 teenage boys from the West Bank and Jerusalem, according to Hamas.
In Tel Aviv, hundreds of Israelis cheered and wept in a square outside the defense headquarters as a live broadcast from Gaza showed three female hostages getting into a Red Cross vehicle surrounded by Hamas fighters.
The Israeli military said Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari had been released. A video released showing them in apparent good health. Damari, who lost two fingers when she was shot the day she was abducted.
At Sheba Medical Center, the women were reunited with their families in long embraces that went from tears to laughter. A smiling Damari was draped in an Israeli flag.
More than 47,000 Palestinians have since been killed in Israeli attacks, according to medical officials in Gaza. Nearly the entire 2.3 million population of Gaza is homeless. Around 400 Israeli soldiers have also died.
The truce calls for fighting to stop, aid to be sent in to Gaza and 33 of the nearly 100 remaining Israeli and foreign hostages to go free over the six-week first phase in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Many of the hostages are believed to be dead.
In the north of the Gaza Strip, Palestinians picked their way through a devastated landscape of rubble and twisted metal that had been bombed into oblivion in the war s most intense fighting.
The first phase of the truce took effect following a three-hour delay during which Israeli warplanes and artillery pounded the Gaza Strip.
That last-minute blitz killed 13 people, Palestinian health authorities said. Israel blamed Hamas for being late to deliver the names of hostages it would free, and said it had struck terrorists.
"Today the guns in Gaza have gone silent," U.S. President Joe Biden said on his last full day in office, welcoming a truce that had eluded U.S. diplomacy for more than a year. "
For Hamas, the truce provided an opportunity to emerge from the shadows after 15 months in hiding. Hamas policemen dressed in blue police uniforms swiftly deployed in some areas, and armed fighters drove through the southern city of Khan Younis, where a crowd cheered, "Greetings to Al-Qassam Brigades," the group s armed wing.
TRUMP AIDE: HAMAS WILL NEVER GOVERN GAZA
There is no detailed plan in place to govern Gaza after the war, much less rebuild it. Any return of Hamas will test the patience of Israel, which has said it will resume fighting unless the militant group is fully dismantled.
Hardline National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir quit the cabinet over the ceasefire, though his party said it would not try to bring down Netanyahu s government. The other most prominent hardliner, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, stayed in the government but said he would quit if the war ends without Hamas completely destroyed.
The truce took effect on the eve of Monday s inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. Trump s national security adviser-designate, Mike Waltz, said that if Hamas reneges on the agreement, the United States would support Israel "in doing what it has to do."
"Hamas will never govern Gaza. That is completely unacceptable," he said.
