Homecoming for Israelis, Palestinians

Trump hails release of hostages and prisoners and attends summit about Gaza’s future.

- BY NABIH BULOS

PRESIDENT Trump, shown with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, addressed the nation's parliament.

(CHIP SOMODEVILLA Pool Photo)

Israelis and Palestinians cried, cheered and gave thanks Monday as Hamas militants released their last 20 living hostages in exchange for more than 1,900 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

It was the first phase of a ceasefire deal put in place last month even as President Trump — the driving force behind the agreement — gave what amounted to a victory speech in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, before departing for a peace summit in Egypt.

Greeted with a standing ovation before he said a word, Trump heralded the deal as ushering in “a golden age” for Israel and the Middle East.

“After so many years of unceasing war and endless danger, today, the skies are calm, the guns are silent, the sirens are still, and the sun rises on a Holy Land that is finally at peace,” he said.

His words belied the many complications facing an agreement that remains far from a comprehensive road map that could definitively end a war that killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and pulverized much of the Gaza Strip, even as it scarred Israeli society with the deaths of 1,200 people and brought unprecedented international condemnation of the country’s leadership.

The night before the scheduled morning handover, tens of thousands Israelis streamed into Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, as well as to the roadside near southern Israel’s Reim military base, where the hostages were to be brought after their release.

A party atmosphere prevailed on the road to Reim, as Sikorsky Super Stallion helicopters landed on a dusty field to the cheers of a nearby crowd, which raised Israeli and American flags and swayed to a song whose lyrics promised, “I’m coming home, tell the world I'm coming home.”