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Hamas frees hostages, Israel releases Palestinian prisoners on day one of ceasefire

The first phase of the truce took effect following a three-hour delay during which Israeli warplanes and artillery pounded the Gaza Strip.

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Hamas released three Israeli hostages and Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners on Sunday, the first day of a ceasefire suspending a 15-month-old war that has devastated the Gaza Strip and inflamed the Middle East, Reuters reported.

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.

Hamas released three Israeli hostages and Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners on Sunday, the first day of a ceasefire suspending a 15-month-old war that has devastated the Gaza Strip and inflamed the Middle East.

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.

The Israeli military said Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari had been reunited with their mothers and released a video showing them in apparent good health. Damari, who lost two fingers when she was shot the day she was abducted, smiled and embraced her mother as she held up a bandaged hand.

“I would like you to tell them: Romi, Doron and Emily – an entire nation embraces you. Welcome home,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a commander by phone.

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. They were among more than 250 people abducted and 1,200 killed in a Hamas raid on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has said.

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, read the report.

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.

“I feel like at last I found some water to drink after being lost in the desert for 15 months,” said Aya, who said she had been displaced from her Gaza City home for more than a year.

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. Hamas said the holdup in providing the list was technical.

“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. “We’ve reached this point today because of the pressure Israel built on Hamas, backed by the United States.”

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.

“All the resistance factions are staying in spite of Netanyahu,” one fighter told Reuters.

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, Reuters reported.

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.

The streets in shattered Gaza City were already busy with groups of people waving the Palestinian flag and filming the scenes on their mobile phones. Several carts loaded with household possessions travelled down a thoroughfare scattered with rubble and debris, read the report.

Ahmed Abu Ayham, 40, of Gaza City said that while the ceasefire may have spared lives, the losses and destruction made it no time for celebration.

“We are in pain, deep pain and it is time to hug one another and cry,” he said.

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Iran, US continue escalating attacks, recriminations over peace deal

US Central Command said earlier that its forces had carried out fresh strikes after a Panama-flagged tanker was attacked by an Iranian drone on Saturday.

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Iran and the US continued their attacks in the Gulf as each accused the ​other of violating an increasingly precarious interim deal signed less than two weeks ago to end their four-month-old war, Reuters reported.

Shortly after President Donald Trump warned the US might “militarily complete the job”, Iran early on Sunday ‌launched missiles and drones on US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain, continuing a series of escalating attacks.

Beyond the Gulf, Israel said it had struck Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon as fighting continued in an area Tehran says is key to its peace deal with Washington.

The U.S. military said earlier it had struck Iran again, hours after a tanker was hit in the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important energy shipping route, which Iran had largely cut off for most of ​the conflict.

The 14-point U.S.-Iran interim agreement was meant to halt the fighting, which the US and Israel started on February 28, and reopen the strait to shipping while ​talks proceeded on more deep-seated issues, such as Iran’s nuclear programme.

One round of mediated talks, led by Vice President JD Vance and Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, ⁠was held in Switzerland a week ago and Washington then waived sanctions on Tehran, but the fighting and recriminations have since resumed and intensified.

“There may come a point when we are no longer able to be ​reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started,” Trump posted on social media. “If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!”

About an hour after Trump’s post, ​the Kuwaiti army said its air defences were responding to “hostile” missile and drone attacks, while sirens sounded in Bahrain, according to that country’s interior ministry.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said its navy and air forces had launched missile and drone operations targeting US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain in response to recent US strikes against Iran, read the report.

The Guards said in a statement the US strikes had violated the ceasefire and “will result in the complete halt of all diplomatic processes”, according to state-run Press ​TV. The IRGC navy command said American bases in the region “will experience hell in the coming days”.

A US official, confirming the attacks on US facilities, told Reuters there were no reported US casualties or major damage to US ​sites in the Middle East but that the situation was still unfolding.

Hours later, alarms sounded for a second time in Bahrain, and the foreign ministry there condemned the attacks as a deliberate and repeated violation of the kingdom’s sovereignty ‌and security. It ⁠urged the U.N. Security Council to hold an urgent session to hold Iran accountable.

US Central Command said earlier that its forces had carried out fresh strikes after a Panama-flagged tanker was attacked by an Iranian drone on Saturday.

“Iran was given a chance to honor the ceasefire agreement but elected not to,” Central Command said in a statement, adding that its strikes were “in direct response to continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping” and targeted Iranian military surveillance, communications, air defence, drone storage and mine-laying facilities.

Iranian state broadcaster IRIB said explosions were heard in Sirik in southern Iran, without providing details. The Guards said “America’s blind shots at ​Sirik will not resolve our dominance over the Strait ​of Hormuz. But our shots at violators will ⁠remind the rest of the vessels of the clear passage route.”

Saturday’s tanker attack in the strait followed one on a cargo ship on Thursday that triggered the latest escalation. Iran is seeking to assert control over the strait, which carried one-fifth of global oil and LNG supplies before the war and which had just begun ​to reopen after months of disruption, Reuters reported.

Hundreds of ships, including tankers laden with oil, have been blockaded inside the Gulf since war broke out. As they began ​leaving through the strait over ⁠the past two weeks, oil prices have tumbled close to pre-war levels on the surge in supply.

Washington has been promoting a southern lane along the coast of Oman, while Tehran, which ultimately aims to charge fees for use of the strait, wants ships to use a northern route through its waters and under its control.

In Lebanon, Israel said on Sunday it had killed Hezbollah militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades and struck a rocket launcher in the ⁠Nabatieh area.

Iran ​accuses the US of violating its commitment under the peace deal to sustaining a ceasefire in Lebanon, which US ally Israel invaded ​in March in pursuit of Hezbollah.

Israel, which is not a party to the US-Iran deal, and Lebanon have repeatedly agreed to US-brokered ceasefires, the latest on Friday. But these have had only limited effect, with Israel insisting it will not withdraw from Lebanese territory it ​has seized and Hezbollah repeatedly rejecting calls to give up its arms as long as Israeli troops remain in place.

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US strikes Iran in response to attack on cargo ship in Strait of Hormuz

The U.S. did not immediately respond to Iran’s report of striking American targets, a tactic that has sought to undermine U.S. allies in the region during the conflict.

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The U.S. military attacked Iran on Friday in response to an Iranian drone strike on a cargo ​ship in the Strait of Hormuz, with each country accusing the other of violating terms of a ceasefire agreed on last week, Reuters reported.

U.S. Central Command said aircraft struck missile and drone ‌storage locations and coastal radar sites, later publishing a grainy black-and-white video of an explosion labeled “unclassified.” A U.S. official reported the operation had concluded.

Iran said a projectile struck the area around a pier in Sirik in southern Iran, and that Iranian naval forces responded by striking U.S. military targets in the region. Tehran did not provide details about what may have been hit.

Elsewhere, however, there were signs of progress in ending the four-month-old conflict, as Israel and Lebanon signed an agreement to end the fighting between Israel ​and Iran-backed Hezbollah. Both sides framed the deal as an initial step that calls for Hezbollah to disarm and Israel to withdraw troops from Lebanon, but it was not clear how it would ​be enforced. Hezbollah said it would not cooperate.

Tehran has said it would control the Strait of Hormuz and warned Gulf ⁠states not to side with Washington after Thursday’s attack on a cargo ship traveling near Oman’s coast. President Donald Trump blamed the attack on Iran and said it violated last week’s interim agreement.

“The unwarranted aggression against commercial shipping by ​Iranian forces clearly violated the ceasefire,” U.S. Central Command said in its statement announcing strikes, which it called “a powerful response to yesterday’s attack on a commercial ship that was transiting the Strait of Hormuz.”

The U.S. military said it ​would continue to provide “safe passage coordination and support” to commercial vessels transiting the strait.

Vice President JD Vance, once seen as a skeptic on U.S. intervention in Iran but now a Trump administration point person on the conflict, said the Americans have honored the ceasefire deal, also known as a memorandum of understanding.

“Iran signed a ceasefire agreement. We have honored it. If they have disagreements about how the MOU is being applied, they can pick up the phone. But violence will be met with violence,” ​Vance said on X.

Iranian state media, citing an unnamed military source, reported the strike at the port of Sirik after an explosion was heard there. The source said several warning shots had been fired from Sirik ​toward vessels that violated Strait of Hormuz regulations about five hours earlier, adding two warning missiles had also been launched from the nearby Karpan area toward the strategic waterway, read the report.

On Saturday, Iran’s Mehr news agency cited the head of ports at ‌eastern Hormozgan as ⁠saying that there was no damage to the port of Sirik after the attack by the U.S. The official said the port was operating normally with no damage reported to facilities and equipment.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said that in response its navy “struck the locations where the terrorist U.S. military is stationed in the region” and warned that any further U.S. attacks would be met with a broader response, according to the statement carried on state media.

The ceasefire agreement gives Iran control over ship traffic in the strait, the Guards said.

“However, the United States, by provoking various fronts, sought to violate this commitment, and the necessary response was given and will continue to be given. ​If the aggression is repeated, our response will ​be broader than this,” the Revolutionary Guards said.

The U.S. did not immediately respond to Iran’s report of striking American targets, a tactic that has sought to undermine U.S. allies in the region during the conflict.

Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, said in response to the latest strikes that Trump has failed to show a ​commitment to the principles of negotiation or ceasefire.

“This reckless violation of the ceasefire will, as always, lead to retreat and regret on their part,” Azizi posted ​on X.

Before the renewed outbreak ⁠of violence, oil prices fell about 3% on Friday, on course for steep weekly losses, in response to oil tankers exiting the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for one-fifth of global oil and LNG supplies before the U.S. and Israel launched the war on February 28, Reuters reported.

Saudi Aramco resumed crude loadings at its Ras Tanura terminal in the Gulf, the world’s biggest oil port, after a nearly four-month halt, shipping data showed.

Fertilizer shipments through the strait have also picked up, helping to ⁠assuage concerns ​about a spike in global food prices.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio — wrapping up a tour of the Gulf to reassure regional allies ​about the interim pact — issued a joint statement with the Gulf Cooperation Council calling for “free, unconditional, and unrestricted navigation” in the strait without tolls or “attempts to assert control.”

Iran’s foreign ministry said the strait should be governed by Iran and Oman, while Ali Akbar Velayati, top adviser ​to Iran’s supreme leader, warned Washington’s Gulf allies their survival depended on Tehran’s tolerance.

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Iran’s Pezeshkian says without missiles his country would be ‘just like Gaza’

The Iranian president stressed that Tehran’s defensive capabilities are not open to negotiation.

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Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has defended Iran’s ballistic missile program, saying the country would have suffered the same fate as Gaza without its missile capabilities.

Speaking during a visit to Pakistan, which has played a mediating role in discussions between Tehran and Washington aimed at securing a lasting end to the Middle East conflict, Pezeshkian said Iran’s missiles serve as a critical deterrent.

“If the missiles we have for our defense did not exist, Israel and the United States would have ploughed Iran just like Gaza, showing no mercy to either the old or the young,” he said.

The Iranian president stressed that Tehran’s defensive capabilities are not open to negotiation.

“We will never negotiate with anyone, under any circumstances, ever, about our defensive capabilities,” he added.

Before the recent conflict, the United States had pushed for Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support for regional armed groups to be included in talks over Tehran’s nuclear activities.

However, U.S. President Donald Trump has recently signaled a more flexible position on the missile issue. Speaking at the G7 summit in France last week, Trump said, “If other countries have them, it’s a little unfair for them not to have some,” referring to missile capabilities.

 
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