Jan. 20 (UPI) — Displaced Palestinians returned to their homes as a cease-fire took effect with three recently returned hostages long-held by Iran’s proxy terror outfit Hamas, according to several reports.
“This is Romi, back from captivity,” long-held hostage Romi Gonen, 24, said in a message released Monday by the Israeli Government Press Office.
Meanwhile, ABC reported the next hostage release is scheduled for Saturday, citing Israeli officials and Hamas.
Gonen was 23 when she was kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, from the Nova music festival. She was shot in the hand during the attack, according to her family.
On Sunday, she was released by Hamas along with Emily Damari, 28, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31, as the first three Israeli hostages to see freedom after more than a year of captivity.
Damari is “in high spirits and on the road to recovery,” according to her mother, Mandy Damari. “As you will have seen last night, she is an amazingly strong and resilient young woman.”
The Israel Defense Forces, meanwhile, confirmed on social media the three were to undergo an initial medical assessment of their condition at the Sheba Medical Center outside of Tel Aviv.
“Thank you all so much,” said Gonen. “I still have no idea what you guys did [for me]. I saw only a small amount of it, but you are the best in the world. I appreciate you so much.”
In addition, 90 Palestinian captives were released Sunday as a signal that the long-awaited cease-fire agreement was taking effect in Gaza.
“Doron would like us to say in her words: ‘The fact that I’m back home doesn’t mean that those who are over there don’t need to come back. Everyone needs to come back. I’m asking you to continue to fight, don’t give up. Go out to the streets. We must carry out all phases of the deal’,” Steinbrecher’s sister, Yamit Ashkenazi, stated.
Meanwhile, U.N. officials indicated more than 630 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid entered Gaza on Sunday with 300 of them going to the north as displaced Palestinians returned to their homes.
“Sending you hugs and kisses and godwilling, I’ll see you soon, Yalla!” Gonen added at the end of her message.
However, after 15 months of relentless war, the humanitarian needs in Gaza “are staggering,” according to a U.N. official.
It arrived even as the Israel Defense Forces continued to operate and strike targets in the enclave. According to Gaza’s Civil Defense agency, at least 99 emergency personnel have been killed and about 319 injured by “deliberate Israeli targeting” over 470 days of war.
“There is no time to lose,” Tom Fletcher, under secretary general for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, said in a statement on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
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