The Return of Israel’s Living Hostages From Gaza Signals a Time to Heal

Many of them had become household names, their faces familiar from posters all over the country: Israelis snatched two years ago from their homes in pastoral border villages, from a music festival rave and from army bases and then secreted into Hamas’s tunnels deep under Gaza.

When they finally emerged on Monday as part of a cease-fire deal reached between Israel and Hamas, they were thinner, wan, but alive and on their feet. And Israelis basked in a joyous moment of unifying national redemption after months of agonizing, polarizing war.

The 20 living hostages who had remained in Gaza, along with the remains of 28 deceased ones, remained an open wound, with the fate of the hostages tearing at the country’s soul.

A majority of Israelis had long wanted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to prioritize their release with a deal to end the war, polls showed. But Mr. Netanyahu accused protesters of “hardening Hamas’s stance” while critics of the prime minister accused him, in turn, of prolonging the war to appease his far-right political allies on whose support he relies to stay in power.

Now, many Israelis said, with an open-ended cease-fire in place and all the living hostages back home, it was time for the country to heal.

“This is a momentous day, a day of great joy,” Mr. Netanyahu said in an address in the Knesset, or Israeli Parliament, on Monday alongside President Trump.

Quoting from the biblical Book of Ecclesiastes, which Jews traditionally read this week, Mr. Netanyahu said there was a time for war and a time for peace.

“The last two years have been a time of war,” he added. “The coming years will hopefully be a time for peace — peace inside Israel and peace outside Israel.”

People began packing Hostages Square in Tel Aviv early Monday morning to watch the release unfold on giant screens. They lined the road, waving Israeli flags outside the Re’im military base in southern Israel, the first stop for the returnees after they crossed into Israeli territory. And they ran onto balconies and rooftops to cheer as helicopters brought the former captives to hospitals.

The military released footage of emotional reunions between the hostages and their family members, as well as extraordinary encounters among the former captives themselves.

Gali and Ziv Berman, 28, twins who were kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, together with their neighbor, Emily Damari, from Kfar Aza, a rural community, were separated by their captors on their first day in Gaza, according to Ms. Damari, who was released during a brief cease-fire in January.

On Monday they hugged. The twins, who had lived close by and worked together before their abduction, were transferred to a hospital wearing matching yellow shirts of their favorite soccer team, Maccabi Tel Aviv. They were flown over the Bloomfield Stadium in Tel Aviv, where fans had gathered to cheer them.

“My Ariel is home, and I am overwhelmed with emotion and joy,” Ms. Yehud said in a statement.

“From the moment of my release, I devoted everything I had to the struggle to bring my Ariel home, to bring David home, and to bring all the hostages back,” she added. “Now that Ariel and David are home, we can focus on our long journey of healing and recovery together as a couple and as a family.”

David Cunio was kidnapped from Nir Oz with his wife, Sharon Cunio, and their twin daughters, Yuli and Emma, 5, who were returned in November 2023.

And the brothers Eitan Horn and Iair Horn let out cries of joy as they embraced. Taken from Nir Oz, they spent time in the tunnels together until Iair was released in February, with Eitan left behind.

The 20 living hostages released on Monday were exchanged for nearly 2,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. There are no more living captives in Gaza, but Israel was still waiting for Hamas to return the remains of 28 deceased ones. The Israeli military said it had received four coffins later Monday and that the authorities would work to identify the remains.

The government has said that locating some of the bodies might take some time.

“We do not forget them for a moment,” Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, the Israeli military’s chief spokesman, said.

Israeli officials said about 1,200 people were killed in Israel and 251 others were abducted to Gaza during the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023 that ignited the war. Hamas had already been holding two Israeli civilians for almost a decade and the remains of two soldiers killed in ambushes in Gaza in 2014.

Four women were released early on in October 2023, and a female soldier was rescued in a military operation that month. During two temporary cease-fires, in November 2023 and early this year, a total of 135 hostages were freed, according to government data. The Trump administration negotiated the release of an Israeli-American soldier in May. Seven more hostages were rescued alive by the Israeli military.

The remains of 59 captives who did not survive were returned to Israel for burial before Monday’s exchange, according to the Israeli government.

More than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed during Israel’s two-year counteroffensive in Gaza, according to local health officials, whose data does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but includes thousands of children.

The drill on Monday was similar in some ways to past releases. The living hostages were handed over to Red Cross representatives in Gaza, who transferred them to Israeli forces near the border.

From there, they were taken in military convoys to the Re’im army base in southern Israel for initial checks and reunions with close family members and were then flown to hospitals in the Tel Aviv area.

But this time was also different.

For the first time in years there were no living hostages left in Gaza, allowing for a large degree of closure.

The hostages returned smiling and at least on the surface, in better condition than many Israelis had feared. Hamas had released gruesome videos of some of the captives looking skeletal and pleading for their lives. Former hostages have described how some were abused and kept in chains.

But this time, there were no humiliating handover ceremonies in Gaza, like during some past releases, when masked gunmen instructed those being released, sometimes weak and emaciated, to wave at crowds from a stage and make speeches thanking captors.

Instead, Israelis glued to their televisions on Monday were surprised to see some hostages still in Hamas custody speaking to their parents via video calls from Gaza while masked gunmen could be seen in the background.

Einav Zangauker, the mother of Matan Zangauker, 25, and one of the most vocal activists of the struggle for the hostages’ release, was filmed speaking on a video call with her son in Gaza for the first time since his abduction two years ago.

“There’s no war; it’s over,” she told him, sitting in a car on the way to the Re’im army base. “You are coming home!”