Jubilation in Israel as Hostages Returned to Families Who Fought for Deal

The Washington Post

15:35 JST, October 14, 2025

TEL AVIV – The 20 surviving Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza regained their freedom Monday, more than two years after they were kidnapped, amid emotional scenes and jubilation from crowds gathered to welcome them home.

The first captives were handed over at about 8:30 a.m. local time to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which facilitated their transfer to Israel, where their families awaited them and thousands of supporters cheered their passage.

The men had been among 250 people seized by Hamas militants from southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, during an attack that killed some 1,200 people. Israel’s retaliatory response in Gaza has killed more than 67,000 people over two years of war, according to local health authorities, who don’t distinguish between civilians and combatants but say the majority are women and children.

Video footage shared by families of the hostages on Monday showed that some of them had been given phones shortly before their release, allowing them to make direct contact with their loved ones for the first time in more than two years. Hours later, photographs distributed by the Israeli military showed the men – many pale and gaunt – being received by the army at the Re’im military base, and then brought to hospitals and into the embrace of their loved ones.

Relatives of the former hostages, interviewed Sunday, had described the moment as surreal, overwhelming and hard to grasp. The father of 48-year old hostage Omri Miran, Dani, said Sunday that he felt as though he were “in the clouds.”

Miran, a Hungarian Israeli gardener and massage therapist, hid in a safe room with his wife and two young daughters as the militant attack on their home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz unfolded. He was taken hostage after opening the door to a young neighbor who had told them: “Please open the door. Otherwise they’ll shoot me, and they’ll shoot you.”

Dani said the family was waiting to tell Miran’s children, Roni, 4, and Alma, 2, of his release until he crossed into Israel. “If something happens, why give them false hope?” he said. “They’ve been waiting for their father for more than two years.”

He didn’t need any special preparations for his son’s return, he said. Perhaps a shower. He didn’t even know what he would say to him. But he knew that he was ready. “I’ll hug him,” he said with a smile. And as photographs released Monday show, wrapped in an Israeli flag, he finally did.

Hours later, Miran was seen playing with Roni and Alma, a wide smile on his face as he used colorful foam blocks to play catch with them.

The moment had been awaited eagerly across Israel. In central Jerusalem, the streets were unusually quiet Monday morning, as the few people sitting at cafes or bus stops stayed glued to live coverage on their cellphones. In Tel Aviv, thousands of Israelis had waited through the night in “Hostages Square,” a public plaza that had become the symbolic home of a campaign to bring the captives home, some curled up and trying to sleep in plastic chairs, others saying they were so apprehensive or excited that they found rest impossible.

The captives were returned to Israel under a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal. In return for the hostages, Israel agreed to free at least 250 Palestinians serving long terms in Israeli prisons and about 1,700 Gazans held without charge since 2023.

The bodies of 28 other Israeli hostages were also due to be recovered and released under the terms of the deal, although Hamas said it would return only four on Monday. The group had warned during negotiations that it would be unable to find all the bodies by the 72-hour deadline because of the destruction in Gaza. An international task force has been charged with helping to recover the unreturned bodies, Brig. Gen. (Res.) Gal Hirsch, Israel’s coordinator for Hostages and Missing Persons Affairs, said Sunday.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned in a statement on X that “any delay or deliberate avoidance will be considered a gross violation of the agreement and will be responded to accordingly.”

In a post on social media, Yael Adar, the mother of Tamir Adar, one of the slain hostages whose body was not slated to be returned in the coming hours, urged her countrymen not to forget her son. “We need you more than ever. The struggle is not over until the last captive returns,” she wrote.

In Israel, the hostages’ families have emerged as a political force, with many channeling their agony into calls for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to bring their loved ones home and end the war. The hostage crisis had cast a long shadow across Israeli society, with hundreds of thousands joining demonstrations calling for a deal to secure the captives’ release.

In Hostages Square, Gideon Shimshoni, 61, said Monday that he had donated blood, in case one of the returnees needed it during their medical care. “If you told me a week or 10 days ago, I never would have believed this could happen,” he said of the releases. “I wouldn’t have been able to sleep at home, so my son told me to stay here.”

Standing in the crowd Monday was another of Hamas’s former captives, Almog Meir Jan, 23. In his mind, he said, the scenes transported him back to the moment when he was seated in an Israeli military helicopter last year, following a deadly raid that secured his freedom. “You land at the hospital, hug your family and are surrounded by love and emotion,” he said. “After two years, we’re finally bringing this to an end. We’ve been waiting for this for so long.”

Staff at the hospitals receiving the hostages say that medical personnel have learned from two earlier rounds of releases how best to care for and examine the returnees, some of whom are feared to be suffering from malnutrition and other illnesses.

At the Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva, where five of the former captives were being treated, Lena Koren Feldman, the facility’s director, said that each man would have his own dedicated team, including a physician, mental health professionals, a physiotherapist and a dietitian. She said evaluations were underway to assess the state of each patient.

In a statement, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an umbrella group representing the families of hostages kidnapped by Hamas, said that “after two years under inhumane conditions of starvation, deprivation of medical care, isolation, violence and abuse, they now need medical care, close supervision and peace – and above all, the restoration of their identity as people, not as ‘hostages.’”

“We now hope that, with the return of all the hostages, we can begin a process of full rehabilitation – for the survivors of captivity, for the families, and for society as a whole.”

Crowds of friends and well-wishers gathered Monday outside one of the hospitals receiving the freed hostages. Outside the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, one group was there to welcome Matan Angrest, a 22-year-old tank commander who was kidnapped from his base in Nahal Oz. Their T-shirts read: “Matan, hero of Israel,” and they cheered as he appeared at the window to call out to them.

Neria Malka, 23, a friend of Matan from the army who served with him in the Armored Corps, told The Washington Post they always believed he would come back. “It was never a question of if he would return, but when.” He added, “We know him; he doesn’t break. We see him smiling, and even now he’s making us hearts and blowing kisses.”