{"id":119896,"date":"2025-10-13T19:27:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T19:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/119896\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T19:27:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T19:27:11","slug":"israel-releases-palestinian-prisoners-as-first-phase-of-ceasefire-implemented-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/119896\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel releases Palestinian prisoners as first phase of ceasefire implemented \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The final 20 living Israeli<\/a> hostages held in Gaza<\/a> by Hamas<\/a> have returned home as part of an emotional exchange that also freed nearly 2,000 Palestinians<\/a> from prisons in Israel, as part of Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s push to end the two-year war<\/a> in the Palestinian enclave.<\/p>\n

The landmark agreement represented the US<\/a> president\u2019s most significant foreign policy success of his second term, which he used to lay out his grand vision for broader peace in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

The long-awaited handovers on Monday sparked jubilation in both Israel and Palestine, and came as Mr Trump visited Israel and Egypt on a whistle-stop trip to tout a 20-point plan to end the deadliest war in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.<\/p>\n

In a speech to the Israeli parliament during which he received multiple standing ovations, Mr Trump set out his postwar vision, welcoming the \u201chistoric dawn of a new Middle East\u201d and \u201cthe start of a grand concord and lasting harmony\u201d between Israel and its neighbours.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Trump\u2019s wilful optimism generates momentum on one-day victory lap of Middle EastOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cThe forces of chaos, terror and ruin that have plagued the region for decades now stand weakened, isolated and totally defeated,\u201d the US president said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow it is time to translate these victories against terrorists on the battlefield into the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Trump also extended an olive branch to Iran, which the US and Israel bombed during a 12-day war earlier this year, saying it \u201cwould be great\u201d to strike a peace deal with Tehran.<\/p>\n

Trump has hailed an end to a \u201cpainful nightmare\u201d after two years of Israel\u2019s war in Gaza. Video: Reuters <\/p>\n

The plan for ending the war in Gaza was announced by Mr Trump last month, with a first phase centred on a ceasefire and hostage exchange, and a second aimed at securing a permanent end to the fighting, in which Hamas would disarm, Israel would withdraw from Gaza and an international stabilisation force would be deployed in the Palestinian enclave.<\/p>\n

Although Israel and Hamas agreed the first stage of the plan, they have yet to agree the second, which diplomats say will be far more complicated given the huge differences between Israel\u2019s and Hamas\u2019s positions.<\/p>\n

The first part of Mr Trump\u2019s plan began smoothly on Monday, with Hamas releasing the 20 living Israeli hostages \u2013 all men in their twenties, thirties and forties \u2013 in two groups in northern and southern Gaza.<\/p>\n

\"PeoplePeople gather to greet freed Palestinian prisoners arriving on buses in the Gaza Strip. Photograph: Jehad Alshrafi\/AP \"AA Palestinian released from an Israeli prison arrives on a bus outside the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. Photograph: AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Soon afterwards, Israel freed more than 1,900 Palestinians, including 250 who had been serving life sentences, and more than 1,700 Gazans who Israel had seized and held without charge since the start of the war in the enclave two years ago.<\/p>\n

But in an indication of the challenges of reaching any agreement, the group representing the families of hostages accused Hamas of breaching the first phase of the deal when the militant group announced it would release the bodies of only four of the 28 dead hostages on Monday.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0What happens next with Israel and will Hamas disarm?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cWe demand all 28 hostages back. We will not give up anyone,\u201d the group said in a statement, calling for the implementation of the peace agreement to be suspended until all 28 bodies had been returned.<\/p>\n

However, in an appearance later on Monday at a \u201cpeace summit\u201d convened by the US and Egypt in Sharm el-Sheikh, Mr Trump said talks on the second phase of his peace plan had already begun and insisted his deal represented the \u201cfirst steps\u201d to peace.<\/p>\n

\"ReleasedReleased Israeli hostage Bar Kupershtein waves to well-wishers. Photograph: Alexi J Rosenfeld\/Getty Images \"CrowdsCrowds gather as a helicopter carrying hostages freed from captivity by Hamas in Gaza arrives at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, Israel. Photograph: Amit Elkayam\/New York Times<\/p>\n

Egypt\u2019s president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi thanked Mr Trump for his efforts at brokering regional peace, saying the deal was the region\u2019s \u201clast hope for peace\u201d. <\/p>\n

Mr Sisi also affirmed that a two-state solution was the \u201conly way\u201d to consolidate peace and said Palestinians had the right to live in an independent state side by side with Israelis. \u2013 Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The final 20 living Israeli hostages held in Gaza by Hamas have returned home as part of an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,356,13,14,3761,69,6,71,3857,11,12,15,16,5,72,7,8,384,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-119896","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-gaza-strip","14":"tag-hamas","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-israel","17":"tag-israel-hamas-conflict","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-palestine","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories","26":"tag-united-states","27":"tag-world","28":"tag-world-news","29":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}