A seemingly normal but unique day at Israeli hospital
Hospital volunteer Michal Silver, 19, sat in the waiting room next to the children’s emergency room, playing cards with a 4-year-old patient who was waiting for tests.
She shuffled cards and laid them out on a plastic table for the small girl just as if it were a normal evening, even though she understood that she was sitting on the edge of a moment the entire nation had been waiting for for almost 15 months.
Silver is waiting for Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher, who were heading to the Sheba Medical Center after having been freed by Hamas in Gaza.
“I am really excited. I keep thinking, ‘When are they coming?’” Silver said, looking over her shoulder for a moment at the sliding doors behind her. “I literally come here every day, and now the hostages are also coming.”
Next to her, patients sat quietly on plastic chairs. A baby cried as it were any other evening.
Italian activist decries 'administrative detention' of Palestinians
Among those waiting for the release of Palestinian prisoners and detainees is Luisa Morgantini, a former member of the European Parliament.
Morgantini, from Italy, said she wanted to be here to show her support for the Palestinian women and children being released from Israeli custody today.
Standing near Ofer Prison in Beitunia, she called administrative detention a “crime against humanity” and lambasted Israel’s practice of detaining Palestinians without charge.
It was not immediately clear how many of the people being released today have been sentenced or charged.
Under so-called administrative detention, Israel can hold detainees indefinitely without trial and or other legal proceedings based on alleged evidence that is not shared with them. Israeli officials say the practice prevents attacks.
But Palestinians and human rights groups have said Israel has exploited the system to detain Palestinians, including children, without clear cause and deny them due process.
Reporters from around the world gather at hospital before hostages' arrival
Dozens of reporters from Israel and around the world gathered at the children’s wing of Sheba Medical Center tonight to wait for the arrival of the three freed hostages: Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher.
Israel police spokesperson Dean Elsdunne told NBC News that the hostages would arrive in a helicopter from Kibbutz Re'im, where they were first welcomed back to Israel.
Cameras were stationed by the hospital entrance in hope of catching a brief glimpse of the ambulances as they pass by before they stop at the door.
Other reporters are stationed in a side corridor, where news networks have set up temporary studios and the hospital director is expected to speak after the hostages arrive.
Palestinians cheer as they return to devastated Rafah
Displaced Palestinians cheered as they return to Rafah by foot, motorcycle and donkey-driven cart during the delay before the ceasefire took effect.
“To Rafah, to Rafah, inside in Gaza,” a boy exclaimed as his group passed by rubble to get to the enclave’s southernmost city.
U.N. chief welcomes ceasefire and hostage release
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has welcomed the ceasefire and hostage release while calling for greater access to aid in Gaza.
“We stand ready to support this implementation & scale up the delivery of sustained humanitarian relief to the countless Palestinians who continue to suffer,” he said today on X.
“It is imperative that this ceasefire removes the significant security & political obstacles to delivering aid.”
IDF video shows moment hostages passed into Israel
The IDF has released video it says shows the moment the three released hostages crossed into Israeli territory after they were released by Hamas.
The video shows an armored vehicle passing through what appears to be the tall border fence that separates Israel and the enclave, followed by a convoy of vehicles.
After they pass through the fence, 11 vehicles drive along a dirt track in the darkness, one of them with a large Israeli flag attached to the trunk.
Devastation greets Palestinians returning to Rafah
A drone video shot, by NBC News’ team in Gaza's Rafah shows civilians returning to the city as well as the scale of the devastation caused by 15 months of Israeli bombing.
The video captured the scale of the devastation caused by Israeli bombing, with destroyed buildings stretching from the roadsides to the horizon.
Keith Siegel will be first American Israeli hostage released: officials
Keith Siegel, 65, will be the first American hostage to be released, with Hamas due to set him free on Day 14 of the ceasefire, two senior U.S. officials told NBC News.
Soon afterward, Hamas will release Sagui Dekel-Chen, 36, who is injured, the officials said. The five other Americans, alive and dead, will not be released until Phase 2 of the complex three-stage process. The only one believed to still be alive is Egan Alexander, 20, who is of military age, and his condition is not known.
Siegel, originally of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was seized from the Kfar Aza kibbutz. He was last seen in a video Hamas released in April. In the video, Siegel, an occupational therapist, spoke directly to his family to say he was doing OK.
His wife, Aviva Siegel, 63, was taken hostage on Oct. 7, 2023, and released the next month. She has become a vocal advocate for the hostages, fighting to keep their plight in the public eye.
In September, she said she was determined to keep “shouting and screaming for the hostages to come home.”
“Keith and I nearly died in the tunnel because there was no oxygen,” Siegel told NBC News’ Lester Holt during a trip to New York at the start of the U.N. General Assembly in September. She also recounted being starved for “24 hours or even more.”
Biden: 'The guns in Gaza have gone silent'
Biden celebrated that the ceasefire deal brokered by the U.S. has "finally come to fruition" shortly after Hamas handed over the first three female hostages.
"The ceasefire has gone into effect in Gaza," he told reporters in South Carolina. "After so much pain, destruction, loss of life, today, the guns in Gaza have gone silent."
Biden said four more women will be released in seven days, followed by three more hostages every seven days thereafter, including at least two American citizens.
Biden also urged the Trump administration to help implement the full scope of the deal, saying the second phase of the ceasefire includes "a permanent end to the war."
"I was pleased to have our team speak as one voice in the final days," he said, adding that the success of the deal is "going to require persistence and continuing support for our friends in the region, and the belief in diplomacy backed by deterrence."
Netanyahu's office welcomes hostage release
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office welcomed the release of the three hostages by Hamas today.
"The Israeli government embraces the three returns," it said in a statement. "Their families were informed by the appointed officials that they joined our forces."
The statement went on to say that the government was committed to the return of all abductees and missing people.