Israel-Hamas: Palestinian prisoners freed hours after three hostages in Gaza released

In the early hours of Monday, 90 Palestinian prisoners and detainees were released from Israeli prisons.

The 90 prisoners were released in exchange for the three Israeli hostages.

Israelis gathered at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv to celebrate the release of three female hostages who were held by Hamas as part of a ceasefire deal.

"It's a beautiful day," said Omri Lifshitz, the son of hostage Oded Lifshitz. "After so long, we got a beautiful day. There's three hostages, young hostages, returning home."

The first group of Palestinian prisoners has been released from Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank as a part of the ceasefire deal, the Israeli Prison Service said.

They are on their way to at least one drop-off location, where many will be reunited with family and friends.

Ninety prisoners and detainees were to be released in exchange for the three Israeli hostages Hamas released today. All 90 were expected to be women and children, according to the Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs.

Scores of Palestinians had been waiting in areas around Ofer Prison in the lead-up to the release, some of them gathering around fires, singing and celebrating the planned release.

Some told NBC News that Israel had detained their loved ones under administrative detention, a practice in which detainees are held without trial and legal proceedings based on alleged evidence that is not shared with them. Israel says the practice is a security measure and that it prevents attacks, while Palestinians and human rights groups say it is often abused to detain Palestinians without justification.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum Headquarters, a group representing captives' relatives, celebrated the release of Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher after they were transferred to Red Cross custody as part of a long-awaited ceasefire deal.

"After 471 agonizing days in captivity, Emily, Doron, and Romi are finally returning home," the group said in a statement.

"Their return today represents a beacon of light in the darkness, a moment of hope and triumph of the human spirit," it said, adding that it also "reminds us of our profound responsibility to continue working towards the release of everyone — until the last hostage returns home."

Families of the remaining hostages held a demonstration in front of the Washington Monument urging Trump to bring every hostage home.

Daniel Neutra, whose brother, Omer, an American Israeli soldier, was taken hostage, was among those urging Trump to ensure the return of every hostage. Israeli authorities said last year that Omer Neutra is believed to have been killed in the fighting and that his body is held by Hamas.

"My brother, Omer, chose to put his own life at risk to save thousands of others," his brother said. "We owe it to him to rescue the people he gave his life to save and to bring him home."

Netanyahu described the ceasefire as “temporary” and told the world that Trump gave “full backing to Israel’s right to return to combat.” Biden said last week that the deal would have three phases, which would include negotiations for a permanent ceasefire after phase one.

Sheba medical center has received the three hostages Hamas released today after they were taken to facility after 471 days in captivity. 

“Emily, Doron and Romi arrived at Sheba and met with their families and began to go through medical examinations,” Sheba medical staff members said in a statement.

The center's director, Dr. Yael Frenkel Nir, said the hostages' medical conditions were such that they could focus first on reuniting them with their families and postpone medical exams for a few hours.

Former Hamas hostage Noa Argamani said at a rally for the hostages in Washington: “I know how to be the one that will be left behind watching other hostages bring relief to their families. My partner, Avinatan Or, and many other hostages are in hell, and they wait for the second that you will be released, too.”

After she was freed in an Israeli raid on Gaza that left a trail of destruction in its wake, Argamani advocated for the hostages still in Gaza, including her boyfriend, to senior diplomats, saying they needed to be brought home before it was “too late.”

The father of a soldier killed on Oct. 7, 2023, said it had been a "a very emotional day" as Hamas released three hostages as part of a ceasefire deal.

"We know the parents of the three women that are being freed today. We love them; we admire them," Omer Neutra's father, Ronen Neutra, told NBC News at a rally for hostage families in Washington. "We’ve been with them, and we’re just so happy that finally they can hold their children."

Moran Stela Yanai, a former hostage whom Hamas freed in November 2023 after 54 days in captivity, described the first three Israeli hostages released from Gaza during the first phase of the truce as “the biggest heroes that I will ever meet in my life.”

“If you have that amount of power to survive another day and another day, then you must be the strongest person,” Yanai, 41, told NBC News at a rally in Tel Aviv yesterday, adding that those still in captivity felt like a part of her “personal journey.”