Newly released Palestinian prisoners flashed victory signs to cheering crowds who gathered on Monday to watch them step into freedom under the new cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas.

Families waited at dawn in the West Bank city of Ramallah and broke into teary-eyed trills as buses carrying some of the nearly 2,000 released prisoners and detainees approached. They rushed forward to greet the men as they stepped off. Many of the men looked haggard and exhausted.

“This feeling is indescribable,” said Nasser Shehadeh, who was released after serving three years of a 17-year sentence for a car ramming attack on two soldiers, who survived. He was told he would be freed three days ago, and said the news came as a surprise.

“I haven’t slept since that moment,” he said.

On Monday afternoon, the Israeli prison service said it had freed all of the 1,968 Palestinians slated for release in an exchange for all the remaining hostages in Gaza. They were sent to the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

Among those freed were 250 Palestinians convicted of terrorism offenses or acts of violence against Israelis and roughly 1,700 more who were detained in Gaza without charge during the war.