Middle East latest: Released Israeli hostage says she has 'returned to life'

Her mother, Mandy Damari, said in a statement later Monday that Damari was “doing much better than any of us could ever have anticipated.”

The three Israeli hostages left Hamas captivity on Sunday and returned to Israel, and dozens of Palestinian prisoners walked free from Israeli jail, leaving both Israelis and Palestinians torn between celebration and trepidation as the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took hold.

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Here's the latest:

UNITED NATIONS — Gaza has received a major influx of aid and goods, with 915 trucks crossing into the territory on the second day of the ceasefire, the United Nations said.

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said colleagues in Gaza informed the U.N. that 915 trucks – significantly higher than the 600 trucks called for in the ceasefire – entered Gaza on Monday, based on information from Israeli authorities and the guarantors of the ceasefire agreement.

U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said Sunday the needs in Gaza are staggering and his office said Monday that aid workers are ramping up the delivery of food, clean water, shelter materials and other essential supplies.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that the more than 2 million people in Gaza, about half of them children, depend on this aid, Haq said.

The World Health Organization, meanwhile, has a 60-day plan to increase beds and deploy overseas health workers to Gaza hospitals, but some 30,000 Palestinians have life-changing injuries and need specialized care, Haq said.

UNITED NATIONS — The Palestinian government says it is ready to take responsibility for running the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and is committed to managing crossing points in collaboration with the European Union and Egypt.

The Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs, Varsen Aghabekian, told a ministerial meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Monday on Gaza that the government welcomes any assistance to train and equip the Palestinian police and security forces. She also called for urgent humanitarian aid.

She expressed hope that the six-week ceasefire will lead to a final ceasefire and lay the foundations for a political track to end Israel’s occupation within a year as called for by the International Court of Justice, the U.N.’s highest tribunal.

Israel’s political coordinator, Reut Shapir Ben Naftaly, told the council “This war will not end until every hostage is returned and Hamas’ ability to terrorize is dismantled.”

She said the Middle East stands at “a turning point” where Iran’s proxies Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon have suffered “devastating losses” and its “network of terror” including the Houthis in Yemen have faced significant setbacks.

Ben Naftaly said Israel has no interest in a conflict with Syria “but we will not tolerate a situation that endangers our civilians, allows Iran to re-establish itself in the region, and transfer weapons to Hezbollah.”

JERUSALEM — Residents of Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank say Israeli settlers have rampaged through their communities and set a large fire.

Officials in Jinsafut and Al-Funduq, two villages roughly 31 miles (50 kilometers) north of Jerusalem, said that dozens of settlers had attacked homes and local businesses.

Jalal Bashir, the head of Jinsafut’s village council said that settlers had burned three houses, a nursery and a carpentry shop located on the village’s main road. Northward in Al-Funduq, Louay Tayem, head of the local council, said dozens of Israeli settlers had fired shots, thrown stones at homes and burned cars, homes and shops.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said it treated 12 people who were beaten by settlers. It gave no details on their conditions. Israel’s military said it dispersed the settlers and launched an investigation.

The West Bank has seen a surge in settler rioting and violence since Oct. 7, 2023. Rights groups say that arrests for settler violence are rare, and prosecutions even rarer.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported 1,432 Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians that resulted in casualties or property damage in 2024 and additional attacks in and near Nablus last week.

TEL AVIV — In their first public comments since reuniting with their loved ones, relatives of the three Israeli women freed from captivity in Gaza thanked those who made their release possible.

They also pleaded to the Israeli government to carry out the phased ceasefire deal that led to their loved ones’ release, and warned their road to recovery could be long.

“Doron asked me to convey this message,” said Yamit Ashkenazi, sister of released hostage Doron Steinbrecher, in a statement to the press at the hospital where the women are still undergoing medical evaluations. “Go out into the streets. We must carry out all the steps of the deal. Just as I was able to return to my family, everyone should return.”

The families all expressed gratitude to the Israeli soldiers who fought in Gaza, including those who died. They also thanked those who pushed for the release of the hostages, including international mediators and U.S. Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump, who took office on Monday in Washington.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Many Palestinians on Monday said they felt hesitant about leaving the shelters they fled to after being displaced by war and returning to the wreckage of their former homes in Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza.

“We wanted to come back to put up a tent during the ceasefire. As you can see it has become a ghost town. There is no water. There is nothing. There is even no leveled ground you can stay on,” said Hussein Barakat.

Footage shot by The Associated Press showed displaced residents digging through rubble with bare hands. Youssef al-Sharqawi sifted through the ruins of his destroyed home to try and retrieve clothes for his five children, including his infant son who has struggled to tolerate the winter’s cold at night.

Mohammed al-Ballas, another displaced Rafah homeowner, said without basic necessities -- including water and electricity -- it would be difficult to return home in Rafah for good. Pointing at collapsed buildings, piles of rubble, and destroyed roads, he said he would remain in his shelter for now because there wasn’t even space to erect a tent in the ruins of his former neighborhood.

“Even if you tried to tie up an animal here, it will not live,” he said.

PORIA ILLIT, Israel — Hundreds of mourners attended the funeral Monday of Israeli soldier Oron Shaul, whose body was recovered in the Gaza Strip a day earlier by the army.

Shaul was killed on July 20, 2014, during fighting between Israel and Hamas. His remains, and those of another soldier, Hadar Goldin, had been held by militants for more than a decade, despite a public campaign to return them by their families.

His remains were recovered hours before the start of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

The Hostages Families Forum, which represents relatives of the captives, called the Shaul family an “inseparable part” of the group.

Militants still hold the remains of Goldin. Two Israeli civilians who crossed into Gaza in 2014 and 2015 on their own are also in captivity, in addition to some 90 others taken hostage in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack took hold.

JERUSALEM — Israel’s far-right finance minister has threatened to topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition if he doesn't resume the war in Gaza after the first phase of the ceasefire agreement expires in six weeks.

Bezalel Smotrich made the threat Monday, a day after the ceasefire went into effect.

“If, God forbid, the war is not resumed, I will bring the government down,” Smotrich told reporters.

Smotrich, who leads an ultranationalist religious party, voted against the deal but has remained in the governing coalition for the time being. His departure would rob Netanyahu of his parliamentary majority, setting the stage for the government’s collapse and early elections.

Smotrich said he has received assurances that Israel will resume the war after the first phase, during which 33 hostages held in Gaza are to return home and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners are to be freed. The second phase, which must still be negotiated, is to work out an end to the war and return of all remaining hostages.

“I insisted, demanded, and received an unequivocal commitment from the prime minister, the minister of defense and the the rest of my Cabinet colleagues — we will not stop this war a moment before realizing its full goals,” Smotrich said.

Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has already resigned over the ceasefire agreement.

Netanyahu, hoping to stabilize his fragile coalition, has so far offered the public no guarantees that Israel will proceed to Phase 2 of the agreement.

BINT JBEIL, Lebanon — Residents trickled back to the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil on Monday as the Israeli army withdrew and Lebanese forces, alongside U.N. peacekeepers, moved in to secure the area.

This marks another town from which Israeli troops have withdrawn following the U.S.- and French-brokered ceasefire that ended the 14-month conflict between Hezbollah and Israel on Nov. 27.

Inside the town, a mosque’s dome lay in ruins, surrounded by collapsed buildings, charred cars and streets strewn with twisted metal and broken glass.

Despite the lack of power some residents returned to check on their homes. Few stayed.

Ahmad Saad, a member of the Bint Jbeil Municipality, said only about 10% of the town’s residents have returned. “Essentials of life are still lacking — there’s no electricity, water, there’s nothing,” he said.

TEL AVIV — The first three Israeli hostages released as part of a ceasefire deal with Hamas cried tears of elation and disbelief in the moments of their initial reunion with their mothers on Israeli soil.

Stepping into a specially prepared reception area in a military base near the Gaza border, Romi Gonen, 24, Emily Damari, 28, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31, each embraced their mother for the first time after more than 15 months.

“My love, you’re with me. I’m protecting you. I’m here,” Simona Steinbrecher, Doron’s mother, told her daughter upon greeting her, according to footage released by the Israeli army on Monday. The women each were accompanied by smiling female soldiers. At one point after falling into her mother’s arms, Gonen calls her father and, fighting through tears, says “Dad! I came back alive!”

Later, aboard the helicopter that whisked them to the hospital, Damari held up a whiteboard with the words “The nightmare is over,” while the women wore noise-cancelling headphones.

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations chief says the Middle East is undergoing a “profound transformation” and has urged all countries to ensure the region emerges from the turbulence with peace and “a horizon of hope grounded in action.”

Secretary-General António Guterres told a ministerial meeting of the U.N. Security Council Monday that “a new dawn is rising in Lebanon,” which he just visited. He said it was vital that Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon and the Lebanese army deploy there as required in the ceasefire agreement.

In Gaza, he urged Israel and Hamas to ensure that their newly agreed deal leads to a permanent ceasefire and the release of all hostages taken by Hamas and other militants during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in southern Israel.

The ceasefire must also lead to four simultaneous actions on the ground, Guterres said.

Unhindered U.N. access including by the U.N. agency supporting Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA which Israel is seeking to ban is essential, he said, as well as scaled-up aid deliveries, Palestinians’ access to aid, and protection of civilians.

Guterres expressed deep concern about “an existential threat to the integrity and contiguity” of Gaza and the West Bank – key pieces of a future Palestinian state – from Israeli actions and “unabated illegal settlement expansion.”

“Senior Israeli officials openly speak of formally annexing all or part of the West Bank in the coming months,” he said. “Any such annexation would constitute a most serious violation of international law.”

The secretary-general said Syria “stands at a crossroads of history” and told the council, “We cannot let the flame of hope turn into an inferno of chaos.” He stressed the need for a Syrian-led political transition, and “much more significant work in addressing sanctions and designations” especially in light of the country’s urgent economic needs.

Qatar on Monday announced plans to supply post-ceasefire Gaza with resources via a “land bridge” at Kerem Shalom, on the border between Egypt, Israel and the coastal Palestinian enclave.

After sending 25 fuel trucks to Gaza on Monday, Qatar plans to supply Gaza with 3.3 million gallons (12.5 million liters) of fuel over the next 10 days, its Foreign Ministry said. The fuel is intended to provide basic services and power hospitals and shelters.

Over the course of the 16-month war, the majority of aid has crossed into Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing, although it has intermittently closed amid disagreements over what kind of aid can be allowed into the strip. Israel previously restricted entry of some equipment, arguing it could be used for military purposes by Hamas.

Allowing more aid into Gaza is a central tenet of the ceasefire deal’s first phase and will be key to later reconstruction efforts. The deal allows for hundreds of trucks — more than Israel has previously allowed — to deliver aid to Gaza.

Egypt’s state-run press center said Monday that at least 300 aid trucks entered Kerem Shalom and and the Nitzana crossing to the south since the ceasefire took effect, as well as 12 diesel trucks and four gas trucks.

However, some of those trucks have carried food aid labeled for UNRWA, the UN agency that Israel has vowed to ban from operating even as it remains the primary distributor of aid in Gaza.

Truck drivers told The Associated Press that throughout the war, vehicles have been turned back for minor bureaucratic infractions or not having aid properly packaged or wrapped.

“If items are approved, we unload them and head back to Egypt … Some trucks have to drive all the way back with packages they left with that contain expired food aid or that the driver’s or truck information is not listed correctly,” driver Hamdy Emad said.

ISTANBUL — A top European Union official announced an aid package of 235 million euros ($244 million) for humanitarian needs within Syria and for countries in the region hosting displaced Syrians, especially Turkey.

Speaking alongside Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Monday during a visit to Ankara after her trip to Syria, Hadja Lahbib, European Commissioner for Preparedness, Crisis Management and Equality, said that the situation in Syria was dire,

“The needs are dramatically immense. The humanitarian crisis is affecting millions of Syrians, and the EU will continue to work and to alleviate the suffering in response to the basic needs of the people," Lahbib said.

Turkey hosts the world’s largest number of refugees, including up to 3 million Syrians.

“Turkey’s hospitality for the Syrian refugees has been crucial over the years,” Lahbib said. “Turkey’s role is crucial in providing humanitarian corridors for the EU to deliver emergency assistance to Syria.

“The region is in geopolitical turmoil, and it would be important for the European Union to work together with Turkey and provide the adequate response by the international community."

BEIRUT — The militant Hezbollah movement has praised the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip as a victory for the Palestinian people, saying Israel did not achieve any of its objectives.

Hezbollah blasted the United States, saying that through its support to Israel, Washington is “a full partner in the crimes and genocide that the enemy committed against the Palestinian people.”

Hezbollah said in a statement Monday that it was a partner in the Palestinian “victory,” adding that the Lebanese group opened a front with Israel in which it paid a high price on top of losing its top commanders, including leader Hassan Nasrallah, and thousands of supporters.

Hezbollah said that resistance is the only way to deter Israel that “was not able to achieve any of its goals by force or break the will or steadfastness of the Palestinian people.”

It said the killings of thousands of people, including women and children, would be “a mark of disgrace” for the international community that remained silent.

TEL AVIV — The mother of one of the Israeli hostages freed after 471 days of captivity in Gaza vowed Monday to keep fighting for the return of all the others.

Merav Leshem Gonen’s daughter, Romi, 24, was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Since then, Leshem Gonen has emerged as one of the loudest voices advocating for the return of the hostages, appearing nearly daily on Israeli news programs and traveling abroad.

“We are in an alternate reality in these hours, shutting out the outside world, a time in which there is nothing but family,” she posted on Facebook on Monday, after reuniting with her daughter Sunday evening near the Gaza border.

All three women released Sunday are expected to stay hospitalized for several days. Officials at the hospital where they were received said their condition was stable.

“It will take me, us, a moment to breathe her in, and to believe this reality that we have brought about together,” Leshem Gonen wrote, adding, “I promise I’ll be back.”

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinians returning to their homes in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah after the ceasefire found homes and neighborhoods flattened after eight months of Israel’s military offensive.

“We found destruction, destruction,” said Mohamed Abu al-Kheir, a Palestinian man who shelters in a tent in the city of Khan Younis. “There is nothing to live in. There is no furniture or anything.”

Associated Press footage showed large swaths of Rafah turned into rubble. People were seen searching the remains of their homes. Others searched two military vehicles that Israeli forces left behind when they withdrew from the area.

“Who wants to live in such destruction? No one will come to live here,” said Mahmoud Khamis, another Rafah resident whose house was destroyed.

BEIRUT — Judicial and security officials in Beirut say a Lebanese man has confessed on giving information to Israel about the Hezbollah group in return for money and has been referred to the country’s prosecutors.

The three judicial and three security officials said Monday that the man, who is from the border village of Beit Lif, crossed into Israel recently where he gave information about Hezbollah posts and some members in the area before returning to Lebanon.

He entered and left Israel with the help of an Israeli drone that led him into the way from where he crossed the border.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about security matters to the media, said the man received $2,500 as well as a laptop and a cellphone to communicate with them.

The officials said that Lebanese military intelligence agents had been monitoring his moves before detaining and questioning him, when he confessed. The officials said prosecutors will question him further and will decide on whether to file charges against him or not.

Israel and Hezbollah fought a 14-month war until a U.S.-brokered 60-day ceasefire went into effect on Nov. 27.

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military says a soldier was killed and another was seriously wounded in the West Bank.

The military declined to provide further details. Israeli media reported Monday that the soldiers’ vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in the northern West Bank overnight.

Israel has been battling Palestinian militants in the northern part of the occupied West Bank for years. The violence escalated after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of the Gaza Strip ignited the war there.

The deadly blast came hours after a long-awaited ceasefire took hold in Gaza. Israel captured Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want an independent state encompassing all three territories.

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey reopened its consulate in Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, raising its flag at the building for the first time in 12 years, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

The opening on Monday comes weeks after the Turkish Embassy resumed its operations in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on Dec. 14.

Turkey had closed down its diplomatic missions in Syria in 2012 due to security concerns amid the civil war, during which Turkey supported forces opposed to the government of former President Bashar Assad.

Prior to the Syria conflict, Aleppo, located some 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the Turkish border, was an important center for trade between Turkey and Syria.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Yemen’s Houthi rebels have signaled they will limit their attacks in the Red Sea corridor to only Israeli-affiliated ships as a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip took hold.

The Houthis made the announcement in an email sent to shippers and others on Sunday. The Houthis separately planned a military statement on Monday, likely about the decision.

The Houthis, through their Humanitarian Operations Coordination Center, made the announcement by saying it was “stopping sanctions” on the other vessels it has previously targeted since it started attacks in November 2023.

The Houthis have targeted about 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip started in October 2023, after Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage.

BEITUNIA, West Bank — Bara’a Al-Fuqha, 22, hugged her family as she stepped off the white Red Cross bus and into the sea of cheering Palestinians welcoming the 90 Palestinians freed by Israel early Monday.

A medical student at Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem before her arrest, she had spent around six months in Damon Prison. She said she was held under administrative detention — a policy of indefinite imprisonment without formal charge or trial that Israel almost exclusively uses against Palestinians. Israel says that the cases of Palestinians released as part of the exchange with Hamas for Israeli hostages all relate to state security charges.

Al-Fuqha said her conditions in Israeli prison were “terrible,” her access to food and water limited.

“It was like, when we tried to hold our heads high, the guards would do their best to hold us down,” she said.

But now, reunited with her family, al-Fuqha displayed a sense of relief and defiance.

“Thank God, I am here with my family, I’m satisfied,” she said. “But my joy is limited, because so many among us Palestinians are being tortured and abused. Our people in Gaza are suffering. God willing, we will work to free them, too.”

That reflected a wider feeling in the crowd, with many saying this release offered a small, if fleeting, moment of joy, tempered by the 15 months of death and destruction in Gaza.

JERUSALEM — United Nations humanitarian officials say that more than 630 trucks of humanitarian aid have entered the besieged Gaza Strip, in implementation of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

In a post on social media platform X, Tom Fletcher, the United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs said that over 630 trucks entered Gaza on Sunday, with at least 300 of them bringing humanitarian assistance into the north.

“There is no time to lose,” Fletcher wrote. “After 15 months of relentless war, the humanitarian needs are staggering.”

The Gaza ceasefire deal, which began Sunday with an initial phase lasting six weeks, calls for the entry into Gaza of 600 trucks carrying humanitarian relief daily. Over the course of the deal’s first stage, 33 Israeli hostages in Hamas captivity in Gaza will also be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

Aid workers have been scrambling to address Gaza’s dire humanitarian needs after 15 months of devastating war and tough Israeli restrictions on aid deliveries and the movement of convoys within Gaza. Lawlessness and looting by armed gangs has also been a major obstacle to aid distribution.

Before this latest Israel-Hamas war began, Gaza was under a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade that allowed the entry of some 500 trucks a day carrying commercial supplies and humanitarian aid.

JERUSALEM — Hamas’ office of prisoner affairs has issued a statement saying the delay in Israel’s release of Palestinian prisoners was the result of a last-minute conflict over the names on the list.

Seven hours after three Israeli hostages were released from Hamas captivity in Gaza on Sunday, Palestinian crowds gathered outside Israel’s Ofer prison near the West Bank city of Ramallah were still waiting for the release of 90 Palestinians.

The Hamas statement said: “During the process of checking the names of the prisoners being released from Ofer prison, there was found to be one female prisoner missing.”

Hamas said that its officials were in communication with mediators and the Red Cross in hopes of pressuring Israel “to adhere to the agreed-upon list of prisoners.” It said that the issue was being resolved and it expected the buses of the released prisoners to soon depart.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the delay.

The Israeli military has been firing projectiles and moving journalists waiting to cover the release of Palestinian prisoners as part of the ceasefire that began Sunday. That’s according to AP video, which showed smoke trailing from objects landing nearby.

The release of the 90 prisoners will take place in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Nearly seven hours have passed since the first three hostages were released from Gaza shortly after the ceasefire began.

It is now approaching 1 a.m. local time. Israel’s military has warned Palestinians against public celebration.