Three Israeli hostages have been reunited with their families, while 90 Palestinian prisoners were released in return in a ceasefire deal that has put an end, for now, to 15 months of bitter war in Gaza.

Amid a chaotic crowd in Gaza, the Israeli hostages were handed by masked, armed gunmen to the Red Cross on Sunday, before being transferred to the Israeli military and then entering southern Israel.

All three were in a stable condition, Sheba Medical Center said, and authorities released footage of them fiercely hugging their families and sobbing.

“An entire nation embraces you,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Meanwhile, Palestinian families welcomed the 90 prisoners freed by Israel early on Monday morning, with crowds gathering to celebrate with the first bus of detainees in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

All are from the occupied West Bank or East Jerusalem. The youngest is a 15-year-old boy from East Jerusalem. Two 17-year-olds, a boy and a girl, were also named.

Israel had detained them for what it said were offences related to Israel’s security, from throwing stones to more serious accusations like attempted murder.

One of the three hostages released by Hamas was 28-year-old British-Israeli Emily Damari, who was shot in the hand and taken to Gaza during the 7 October attack that sparked the war in 2023.

The other two hostages freed on Sunday were 31-year-old Doron Steinbrecher, abducted from the same Kibbutz Kfar Aza in southern Israel as Ms Damari, and Romi Gonen, 24, who was taken from the Supernova music festival.

Emily Damari’s mother, Mandy Damari, thanked “everyone who never stopped fighting for Emily throughout this horrendous ordeal”.

Relief and grief in ravaged Gaza

In Gaza, Palestinians have been both celebrating the relief from the bombing and grieving the loss of loved ones and livelihoods.

Some started the trek back through the rubble to what is left of their bombed-out homes, hoping to pick up any pieces of their lives.

“I feel like at last I found some water to drink after getting lost in the desert for 15 months. I feel alive again,” said a woman from Gaza City, who had been sheltering in Deir al Balah in the central Gaza Strip, for over a year.

Ceasefire arrived after last minute delay

The long-sought ceasefire for Gaza was delayed before it eventually took effect at 11.15am local time on Sunday (9.15am UK time).

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the ceasefire, which had been due to start at 6.30am, would not begin until Israel received the names of the three hostages to be released.

After receiving the list, his office confirmed in a statement the ceasefire had started.

Read more:
What we know about British-Israeli hostage Emily Damari
One father hopes the ceasefire will bring his son home

Hamas blamed the delay on “technical field reasons”, during which time Israel continued to launch military strikes on Gaza, killing a further 13 people, and injuring dozens, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said.

The Israeli military said it struck “terror targets”.

Medics reported tanks firing at the Zeitoun area in Gaza City, and said an airstrike and tank fire also hit the northern town of Beit Hanoun, sending residents who had returned there in anticipation of the ceasefire fleeing.

Sky’s Middle East correspondent Alistair Bunkall said he understood these technical issues may have been related to Hamas’s difficulties passing messages between its leadership in Gaza. It has long avoided using mobile phones to prevent detection by the Israeli military.

“Many in Israel will naturally blame Hamas for playing games,” Bunkall said.

“The mediating teams knew the ceasefire would be shaky, they knew that there would be bumps in the road and have encouraged both Israel and Hamas to remain calm as any difficulties are worked through.”

Read more:
What do Israelis think of the Gaza ceasefire deal?
The most prominent Palestinians held in Israeli jails
A timeline of events since the 7 October Hamas attack

As the fragile ceasefire started, Israeli forces started withdrawing from parts of Gaza, allowing thousands of displaced Palestinians to begin the journey back to their battered homes.

Two-thirds of all structures in the Gaza Strip have been damaged or obliterated, the United Nations Satellite Centre found back in September.

Weary residents returning to Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza found their homes reduced to rubble.

A deal hard-won

The deal was agreed by Israel’s cabinet on Friday night after a breakthrough in negotiations – mediated by the US, Qatar and Egypt – was announced on Wednesday.

Its first stage will last six weeks, during which 33 of the remaining 94 hostages – women, children, men over 50, the ill and wounded – will be released in return for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

The Palestinians to be set free include 737 male, female and teenage prisoners, some of whom are members of militant groups convicted of attacks that killed dozens of Israelis, as well as hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza in detention since the start of the war.

The pause in fighting is also supposed to enable humanitarian aid into the war-ravaged territory. The UN World Food Program said trucks started entering through two crossings on Sunday.

470 days of war

The war began after Hamas militants rampaged into Israel and killed around 1,200 people and abducted another 250 on 7 October 2023.

Israel responded with an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and militants, but say women and children make up more than half the dead.

An Australian broadcaster has apologised to Novak Djokovic and Serbian tennis fans after calling the 24-time Grand Slam champion “overrated” and a “has-been”.

Djokovic, 37, refused to give a customary post-match interview to Channel Nine anchor Jim Courier after beating Jiri Lehecka of the Czech Republic at the Australian Open on Sunday.

He said in a press conference his annoyance was not directed at the crowd but another Channel Nine presenter, Tony Jones, who allegedly mocked a group of chanting fans on Friday by singing: “Novak is overrated, Novak’s a has-been, Novak kick him out.”

The tennis star said that he also spoke to Craig Tiley, the head of Tennis Australia, telling him he would accept a fine for him not giving the interview, if the body decided to issue one.

Not referring to Mr Jones by name, Djokovic later posted on X on Sunday to say the comments “made a mockery of Serbian fans” and were “insulting and offensive” towards him.

He said he hoped for a public apology and that he would continue to avoid speaking to Mr Jones and the Nine Network until “something is done”.

Appearing on the Today programme on Monday, Mr Jones offered that apology, saying he meant the comments as “banter”.

“I considered it to be humour, which is consistent with most things I do,” he said. “Having said that, I was made aware … that the Djokovic camp was not happy at all with those comments.

“I immediately contacted the Djokovic camp and issued an apology to them. And as I stand here now, I stand by that apology to Novak.”

He also said he felt he had “let down the Serbian fans”.

He said the one comment he particularly regretted was “kick him out”, which he accepted could only be construed as a reference to Djokovic’s deportation from Australia in a row over his Covid vaccination status in early 2022, Sky Sports News reported.

Australia’s Nine Network also issued a statement Monday and apologised to Djokovic “for any offence caused from comments made during a recent live cross”.

Read more:
Tennis star says ‘nobody got hurt’ as she brushes off booing
Murray says he could help Djokovic be ‘best athlete of all time’

It said: “No harm was intended towards Novak or his fans. We look forward to further showcasing his Australian Open campaign at Melbourne Park.”

Djokovic is scheduled to play no 3 seed Carlos Alcaraz in the quarter-finals on Tuesday.

With the ceasefire now in effect, it hopes to bring an end to the most destructive chapter in the almost 77 year-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

Gaza’s Hamas-led government estimates that 14 in every 15 homes have been damaged, with five destroyed.

The destruction has left the Gaza Strip littered with an estimated 42 million tonnes of debris, the equivalent of 180 Wembley stadiums.

The UN estimates that 69% of buildings have been damaged, with one in four (24%) totally destroyed.

Satellite images from northern Gaza capture the extent of the destruction.

Less than one kilometre west of the Indonesian Hospital, one of North Gaza’s main hospitals, entire residential neighbourhoods have been destroyed.

Alongside the destruction of physical infrastructure, tank trails, and sand fortifications indicate the current large-scale presence of the military in the north.

What does the future hold for Gaza?

The ceasefire came into force on Sunday morning after a delay. Under the terms of the deal, Israeli forces will be required to withdraw from their current positions to within 700 metres of the Gaza border.

The most immediate consequence is likely to be a rush of Palestinians returning to their homes. An estimated 1.9 million Gaza residents have been displaced since the war began – 90% of the population.

Many of them are sheltering in vast tent cities along Gaza’s shoreline, following Israel’s orders for them to flee to what it calls the Al Mawasi “humanitarian zone”.

The largest displacement took place on the sixth day of the war, when Israel gave all residents of the northern half of Gaza just six hours to flee southwards.

The ceasefire agreement stipulates that residents will be permitted to return to the north from the seventh day of the ceasefire, Sunday 26 January.

Yet it is unclear if the region can cope with an influx of returnees, especially the area to the north of Gaza City.

An estimated 70% of buildings in this region have been damaged or destroyed, and there is currently only one operational hospital.

The ceasefire agreement anticipates a mass exodus of people returning to the north, requiring that half of all aid be sent there.

The agreement stipulates that 600 aid trucks must be allowed to enter Gaza every day – a nine-fold increase on the month to 13 January, which saw an average of just 67 trucks enter per day.

Many agencies have a backlog of trucks filled with humanitarian aid ready to be transported into Gaza, but the extent of the damage makes prioritising a challenge.

Damage to water and sanitation facilities, for example, is extensive. Before the war, 80% of water production came from groundwater wells – aid agencies estimate that only 8% of those wells in North Gaza are now accessible.

The only seawater desalination plant in the North, which was a key source of drinking water, was destroyed in the fighting.

Even if water sources can be repaired, the infrastructure distributing it has been badly damaged. According to the WASH Cluster, a group of aid agencies, damage to pipelines in Gaza means that 70% of water sent through them is currently leaking out.

Healthcare infrastructure is also heavily damaged. According to the World Health Organisation, half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are out of service. The other half are only partially functioning, a result of shortages of medical supplies, fuel and personnel.

While homes and infrastructure can be rebuilt, the lives lost in this devastating conflict will continue to weigh heavily on both Israeli and Palestinian society.

1,195 people were killed in the October 7 Hamas attack which sparked the war in 2023, according to Israeli authorities, including 815 civilians.

The Palestinian militant group and its allies took a further 251 people, including women and children, back to the Gaza Strip as hostages.

Israel responded with a devastating air and ground offensive that Palestinian authorities say has killed at least 46,788 people, and injured a further 110,453.

That means one in every 14 Palestinians in Gaza has been killed or wounded since the war began.

Those figures are from Gaza’s health ministry, which is part of the territory’s Hamas-led government.

They don’t distinguish between civilians and combatants, but only around 41% of reported fatalities are military-age males – the rest being women, children and elderly people.

Health officials say 1,410 families have been “completely wiped out”, and a further 3,463 left with one surviving member. At least 35,055 children have lost a parent.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.