Early Monday morning, Oct. 13, Hamas turned over seven of the 20 remaining Israeli hostages to the Red Cross in Gaza to be transported to Israel. It was the start of an emotional and eventful day. Over the following hours, all of the remaining living hostages would be back on Israeli soil after two long years of captivity in Gaza, and U.S. President Donald Trump would address the Israeli Knesset in a speech that proclaimed the end of an era of war and the beginning of peace.
Unlike the staged and performative hostage releases earlier this year, Hamas transferred the hostages to the Red Cross with efficiency, and they were evacuated out of Gaza before relatively calm spectators and curious children offering waves of goodbye. (RELATED: To Bring Hostages Home, Israel Pays Very Steep Price)
Once back on Israeli soil, the convoy of hostage vans was welcomed by flag-waving Israelis crowding the desert road between Gaza and Re’im. The newly repatriated hostages underwent initial medical checks and were reunited with their families at a military post for the first time in two years before boarding IDF helicopters. By 11 AM, Hamas no longer held a living Israeli captive. (RELATED: Give (Eternal?) Peace a Chance?)
Across Israel, people celebrated, mourned, rejoiced, wept, sang, and danced. “Hostage Square” in Tel Aviv — the site where, over the past two years, mass gatherings, demonstrations, and memorials were held and erected in support of the hostages — was filled with ecstatic spectators watching the events of the morning unfold on a projector screen.
Air Force One flew over “Hostage Square” before landing at Ben Gurion International Airport. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed Trump with a red carpet, and their diplomatic convoy ascended the ancient foothills of Benjamin up to Jerusalem. The capital city was well prepared to welcome the U.S. president. Massive U.S. flags were draped across municipal buildings, and banners reading “The City of Peace Welcomes the Man of Peace,” “Trump Make Israel Great,” and “Cyrus the Great is Alive,” fluttered from high-rise offices and residential towers. (RELATED: Nobel Snubs Trump but Will His Peace Plan Hold?)
Meanwhile, at the Ofer Prison in the West Bank, 250 Palestinian “security prisoners” serving life sentences for deadly attacks were released to the West Bank, as per the peace-exchange agreement, while seven were deported abroad, banned from entering Israel. Additionally, 1,718 Gaza detainees arrested over the course of the war were released back to the Gaza Strip. The accumulated human rights violations and innocent blood on these prisoners’ hands are astounding. (RELATED: Will Hamas Blow Up Gaza Deal With Explosive Demands?)
President Trump and his entourage — which included Steve Wikoff, Jared Kushner, Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, and others — were escorted into the Knesset by Netanyahu, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, and Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana. In a photographic moment, Trump whipped out a thick black marker and inscribed “This is my great honor — a great and beautiful day. A new Beginning,” in the Knesset guestbook.
While being escorted to the Knesset assembly chamber, a hungry press corps shouted questions: “Will Israel be able to renew its war with Hamas if they re-arm?” “Is the war now over?” No answers were given, but these questions expose a haunting reality lurking behind this moment of joy and celebration and beg the ultimate question: Is the war really over?
Before the Knesset assembly and visitors, Ohana gave an energized and impassioned speech, urging other nations to follow Trump’s example of peace through strength and to raise strong world leaders. Ohana ended his speech by announcing that Israel has submitted Trump’s name for the candidacy for the Nobel Prize next year.
Next came Netanyahu, who began his speech by praising the IDF for fighting like lions over the past two years “on the front lines of civilization.” The Israeli premier praised Trump for moving the world “so quickly, so decisively, so resolutely” to support and enforce the hostage exchange. “With our military pressure and Trump’s global leadership,” Netanyahu asserted, all the hostages are now back home and Israel’s enemies are severely weakened. He concluded: “I extend my hand to those who want to seek peace with us.”
Opposition leader Yair Lapid then took to the podium in a bold and determined speech. “We are not going anywhere,” Lapid said. “The Middle East is our home, we are here to stay, our story did not end in the Bible, it began there.” Lapid then turned to the world — to hostile European governments and radical American university students — and warned: “You were deceived, go and learn the facts, there was no genocide, no famine [in Gaza] … they [Palestinian propaganda] played with your minds.” The opposition leader ended by stating that “Israel is reinventing itself … waiting for the moment to re-channel our grief and loss into the energy to rebuild our nation.” (RELATED: Israel Faces Increasing International Isolation Amid European Delusion)
Trump’s speech, in typical fashion, was casual and largely unscripted. “This is not only the end of a war, this is the end of an age of terror and death, and the beginning of the age of faith and hope and of God.” About 10 minutes in, Ohana interrupted, yelling “Get out!” (in Hebrew) as men in the assembly forcefully lifted ministers Ayman Odeh and Ofer Cassif out of their seats and escorted them out of the assembly for holding up “Recognize Palestine” and “Genocide” signs.
“That was efficient,” Trump responded, before continuing to praise his administration for working toward global peace and boasting how he has brought the American military to its zenith. Trump ended by encouraging Israel to “translate these victories on the battlefield into peace in the region” and encouraged Israel’s hostile neighbors: “Instead of building fortresses of defense, we should be building economies.”
Monday was a day of celebration and a moment when most Israelis could finally exhale and breathe.
Monday was a day of celebration and a moment when most Israelis could finally exhale and breathe. “Something was always in my chest, always in my throat over the past two years, no matter how much I tried to suppress it; now I can finally breathe,” a friend confessed to me upon hearing that the last hostages had finally returned home.
But tension still hangs in the air. The details of Trump’s brokered deal remain unresolved, and for many, this means the war is still unresolved. (RELATED: Real Peace in Israel Lies Beyond the Two-State Solution)
Hamas has made no indication that it will lay down its weapons or give up its political position in Gaza. Under Trump’s deal, Hamas members are granted amnesty if they abandon their military and political position, and until this happens, the IDF is on full alert.
The hostages have long been Hamas’s leverage to survive, but the war now is no longer about the hostages. The Trump administration’s guarantees that Hamas is weakened and defeated are met with caution by Jerusalem. The safety granted to Hamas members under Trump’s plan allows them to continue fighting even if under a different name or from outside Gaza.
The situation is still volatile. While negotiations were ongoing last week in Sharm el-Shiek, Egypt, the Shin Bet (Israel’s counterterrorist agency) intercepted a massive “balance-breaking” Iranian arms shipment to Palestinian terrorist cells in the West Bank that included “claymore-type” mines, drones, anti-tank missiles, and RPGs. And while Hamas and Israel both agreed to the deal on Thursday of last week, Houthi missiles were being intercepted by the Israeli Air Force over central Israel. The past two years have proven that Israel’s enemies do not need to be contiguous to attack, and their enfranchisement is aimed at keeping multiple theaters of war open.
The passing questions raised by the press corps in the lobby of the Knesset to President Trump are valid. The hostages are home, but is the war really over? It seems for now that Israel’s enemies are severely weakened but not actually defeated.
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Real Peace in Israel Lies Beyond the Two-State Solution
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