Israeli hostage’s mother able to give ‘dream’ hug — as it happened

Thanks for joining us and following all the developments on the second day of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

You can scroll back to see the events of the day.

You can also subscribe to a range of news alerts on the ABC News app for the latest updates as they happen.

We mentioned a little earlier that the Israeli hostages were given “gift bags” from Hamas which contained a number of items including a certificate.

We’ve translated some more of the Hebrew on Emily Damari’s certificate pictured above.

Here’s what is says on the inside in Hebrew and Arabic:

Release Decision

The Command of Ezzeldin Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement

To release the prisoner: Emily Damari

(Israeli) ID Number: XXXXXXXX [The ABC will not be providing this]

Date of birth: 10/6/1996

Place detained: Re’im

Place of residence: Kibbutz Kfar Azza

Place of work: Kibbutz Kfar Azza

Date of detention: 7/10/2023

Date of release: 19/1/2025

This is following the ceasefire agreement deal of Al-Aqsa Flood Battle on 19/1/2025

On the second day of the ceasefire, the militant group has released a defiant statement.

“Gaza, with its great people and its resilience, will rise again to rebuild what the occupation has destroyed and continue on the path of steadfastness until the occupation is defeated,” Hamas said in the statement.

Israel had vowed to destroy Hamas and its network of tunnels it had built underneath Gaza.

As we’ve been reporting, the clean-up, recovery and rebuilding efforts will be significant after the 15-month long war.

Reporting with AFP

If you’re just joining us, here’s the most important events of today, the second day of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas:

• Three Israeli hostages have been released and reunited with their families in Tel Aviv
• In exchange, 90 Palestinian prisoners were freed from Israeli jails in the West Bank
• The UN says 630 aid trucks have entered Gaza in-line with the ceasefire agreement
• A renewed effort has been launched to find some 10,000 people understood to be buried under the rubble in Gaza

Day two of the ceasefire has seen emergency services launch renewed efforts to find people buried in Gaza.

“We are searching for 10,000 martyrs whose bodies remain under the rubble,” Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson of the Palestinian Civil Emergency Services, told Reuters.

Residents and medics in Gaza said for the most part the ceasefire appeared to be holding, although there were reports of isolated incidents.

Medics said eight people had been hit by Israeli fire since Monday morning in the southern city of Rafah, without giving details of their condition.

The Israeli military said it was checking the reports.

Reporting with Reuters

Donald Trump is now just hours away from being sworn in as US president for his second term in the Oval Office.

In his first term as president, Donald Trump:

• Broke with much of the international community and moved the US embassy to Jerusalem
• Oversaw landmark normalisation deals between Israel and  Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates
• Recognised Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, again going against much of the world and numerous UN resolutions

This time round, some of his cabinet picks again suggest a favourable line for Israel.

The incoming president’s pick for US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, is a staunch supporter of Israeli annexation of the occupied West Bank.

You can follow the latest on Donald Trump’s inauguration here at the live blog.

A UN damage assessment released this month showed that clearing over 50 million tonnes of rubble left in the aftermath of Israel’s bombardment could take 21 years and cost up to $US1.2 billion ($1.9 billion).

The debris is believed to be contaminated with asbestos, with some refugee camps struck during the war known to have been built with the material.

The rubble also likely holds human remains.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health estimates that 10,000 bodies are missing under the debris.

A United Nations Development Programme official said on Sunday that development in Gaza has been set back by 69 years as a result of the conflict.

Rebuilding Gaza’s shattered homes will take at least until 2040, but could drag on for many decades, according to a UN report released last year.

Two-thirds of Gaza’s pre-war structures – more than 170,000 buildings – have been damaged or flattened, according to UN satellite data (UNOSAT) in December. That amounts to about 69 per cent of the total structures in the Gaza Strip.

Within the count are a total of 245,123 housing units, according to an estimate from UNOSAT.

Currently, more than 1.8 million people are in need of emergency shelter in Gaza, the UN humanitarian office said.

Gaza’s health ministry says at least 47,035 Palestinians have been killed and 111,091 injured in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza since it began in October 2023.

It added that in the past 24 hours, 60 people were killed and another 62 bodies were recovered.

Reporting with Reuters

As the first group of Israeli hostages are freed from Hamas captivity, the ceasefire deal that enabled that to happen is turning into a political headache for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Several high cabinet members have resigned, including National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who said the ceasefire deal was “a complete victory for terrorism”.

But former Jerusalem Post deputy managing editor, Tovah Lazaroff, told The World Mr Netanyahu is polling well at the moment and the latest resignation pose little threat to his leadership.

Watch the interview here: 

Hamas policemen stand guard after deploying in streets to maintain order, following a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City.

ABC’s Middle East correspondent Eric Tlozek is reporting live from the Kerem Shalom Crossing, where trucks loaded with humanitarian aid are entering the Gaza Strip for the first time since it was closed in May last year.

Gazans used the crossing to go in and out of the Strip and was previously controlled by Egypt, not Israel.

Under the new ceasefire agreement, the number of trucks going into Gaza has to “increase ten-fold”.

Tlozek says that the hope is, without fighting underway inside Gaza, solving the problem of distributing the aid — which has been one of the major issues — will occur.

Dozens of trucks can be seen making their way into Gaza, most of them full of food, blankets and other types of shelter.

“It is going to be crucial in the later stages of this ceasefire that this crossing is re-opened, that it is re-stored, and in fact, the capacity is increased,” he said.

Watch the full video here:

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A drone view shows Palestinians walking past the rubble of houses and buildings, following a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip.

Mandy Damari, the mother of one of the hostages Emily Damari, has released a statement:

Yesterday, I was finally able to give Emily the hug that I have been dreaming of.

From the bottom of my heart I would like to thank the many people who have played a role in bringing Emily home and given their support to me and my family. As I said over the course of the campaign, you are all Emily’s family.

I am relieved to report that after her release, Emily is doing much better than any of us could ever have anticipated. I am also happy that during her release the world was given a glimpse of her feisty and charismatic personality.

In Emily’s own words, she is the happiest girl in the world; she has her life back.

In this incredibly happy moment for our family, we must also remember that 94 other hostages still remain. The ceasefire must continue and every last hostage must be returned to their families.

As wonderful as it is to see Emily’s resilience, these are still early days. As you will have seen yesterday, Emily lost two of the fingers on her left hand.

She now needs time with her loved ones and her doctors as she begins her road to recovery.

Neither Emily, myself or other members of our family will be giving interviews or further comments in the immediate future, and we appreciate being given space and privacy to heal at this time.

In the north of the Gaza Strip, thousands of Palestinians picked their way through a devastated landscape of rubble and twisted metal as they made their way back to their homes after 15 months of displacement.

Shadi Jomaa Abu Sheha used the cover of the ceasefire to return to his house in Nuseirat, in central Gaza.

“When we returned to our homes we found nothing but ruin and destruction. I cannot describe the scene in words,” he said.

In Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, residents returned to find destruction across the city that was once a hub for displaced families fleeing Israel’s bombardment elsewhere.

“It’s an indescribable scene. It’s like you see in a Hollywood horror movie,” Mohamed Abu Taha, a Rafah resident said.

My colleague Zena Chamas has more here:

A video released by Hamas showed the three hostages receiving “gift bags” consisting of a certificate to mark their time in captivity.

Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation report the bags contained a map of the Gaza Strip, photos of the captives during their time in captivity and a certificate.

The map is reportedly of the Gaza Strip. The certificate is printed on two pages, one in Hebrew and the other in Arabic.

The one pictured above held by hostage Emily Damari reads:

Release Decision:

The Command of Ezzeldin Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement

To release the prisoner: Emily [illegible] Damari

It includes seven subjects and answers to each and the insignia of Al-Qassam Brigades on the bottom left.

With Liana Walker

Yemen’s Houthis will limit their attacks on commercial vessels to Israel-linked ships after the Gaza ceasefire came into effect, the Yemen-based Humanitarian Operations Coordination Center (HOCC), said.

The HOCC, which liaises between Houthi forces and commercial shipping operators, also said in an email dated January 19 that if the US, Britain or Israel resumed strikes on Yemen, then attacks on vessels affiliated with these countries would resume.

The Houthis have targeted over 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip started in October 2023.

The Iranian-backed Houthis have seized one vessel and sunk two in a campaign that has also killed four sailors.

With wires

Dave has asked:

How do they work out ratios of hostage and prisoner release?

It’s complicated. Negotiations between Israel and Hamas were held, on-and-off, for months before the ceasefire was agreed to and always behind closed doors.

We don’t know how much the equation you’re referring to formed part of those discussions.

But there are a few things we do know. In phase one of the ceasefire, Hamas will release 33 hostages (we don’t know if they’re all alive). Israel will release about 700 Palestinian prisoners, as well as more than 1,000 detainees from Gaza that it’s held since the start of the war.

There are some other details in the agreement:

• Nine ill and wounded hostages out of those 33 to be released by Hamas will be swapped for 110 Palestinian prisoners with life sentences.
• Male hostages aged over 50 will be exchanged by Hamas at differing ratios of Palestinian prisoners (1:3 for life sentences / 1:27 for other sentences)

There are numerous other equations in the text of the agreement. Exactly how these are calculated by Israel and Hamas is unclear.

This is the second ceasefire in this war, and when the first one was held back in November 2023, hostages and prisoners were also exchanged, but at a completely different ratio (around 50 hostages over the course of the agreement, and 150 prisoners, who were women and children).

Hope that helps Dave!

Freed Palestinian prisoner Nidaa Zaghebi embraced her family as she was released from an Israeli jail.