By GIOVANNA DELL’ORTO
LAVON, Israel (AP) — It was a day of joy and tears across Israel. Families, loved ones and friends watched as Hamas released the last living hostages held captive for over two years in the Gaza Strip.
On day 738 since Alon Ohel was taken hostage, family and friends of the young music lover jumped to their feet, cheered, blew into shofars — traditional horns that announce glad tidings — and hugged each other when they saw his picture on a livestream among the seven hostages Hamas first released to the Red Cross on Monday morning.
“This is the best morning in my life. I just want to hug him,” Ohel’s cousin, Noam Rozen, 24, said before choking up.
By midday, 13 more hostages were freed, bringing the final number of the living hostages released to 20.
With other members of his family, and dozens of supporters cheering, Rozen took down one of the hostage posters that had long been hanging by the village’s entrance and replaced it with a banner saying in Hebrew: “Welcome back home — the heart returned to beating and now we can breathe.”
The wait on a Galilee hilltop village
Hundreds had been packing the small community center of the hilltop village of Lavon in the Galilee since before dawn for one of the most important days of their lives — when the last 20 living hostages were scheduled to be released, first to the Red Cross and then to the Israeli military, as part of a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
“I told God many months ago, ‘If Alon is coming home, I bring shofar and I say thank you for this,’” said Yaniv Shema Zion, who’s known Ohel since he was a toddler.
Wearing T-shirts emblazoned with pictures of Ohel, people from Lavon waved flags, sang hymns, hugged and wiped away tears before falling silent in front of the projected screen carrying images from Gaza of the release.
“Knowing Alon, there was no chance not to get him back with us,” his aunt, Nirit Ohel said, though she added the family was still worried about his health.
Alon Ohel had had shrapnel in his eye from the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on the bomb shelter in southern Israel where he had sought refuge.
People in Lavon jumped on chairs and shouted with joy when the first images of Ohel were broadcast, showing him thin but smiling.
People in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square sobbed as photos of the hostages reuniting with their families flashed on the large screens. The names and faces of the hostages and their families have become household names across Israel over the past two years.
Endless days in chains
Ohel was kidnapped at the Nova music festival from a mobile bomb shelter along with Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American-Israeli who was killed in captivity in August 2024.
Eli Sharabi, another hostage held with Ohel and released in a previous ceasefire said they were kept chained, with only a moldy pita bread per day for food.
Ohel became a symbol of the hostage crisis because of his piano playing. At his mother initiative, pianos in his honor appeared across the country, including next to Jerusalem’s city hall and in Tel Aviv’s square devoted to the hostages.
“She wanted people to play and through it, to send their love to him,” Nirit Ohel said.
Another of Ohel’s aunts, Einat Rozen, said she was finally able to feel joy again, and praised the community’s support.
“Our community was with us all the time,” she said, tears streaming down her face.
The hostages’ plight
The fate of the 251 hostages taken by Hamas-led militants in the attack on southern Israel just over two years ago, has weighed on every aspect of daily life in this country.
Hostage posters and stickers are plastered everywhere — from seaside promenades to countryside bus stops — and many Israelis have been wearing yellow ribbons on their lapels, their wrists, their cars and their gardens for more than two years.
Weekly vigils and protests were held in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and small communities like the Ohels’ home of Lavon — 230 families in northern Galilee — bonded together to help the hostages’ relatives. Tens of thousands gathered to watch news of the release.
The country erupted with joy on Monday morning when the first group of the last 20 living hostages still held in Gaza were seen transferred to the Red Cross as part of the ceasefire deal.
“I think what you are seeing here, the people that are celebrating in the square, something for me that is very Israeli, to see so many people gathering around to celebrate not the death of our enemies but the life of our people, of Israeli people,״ Gili Roman said as he and tens of thousands of others celebrated in Tel Aviv.
His sister Yarden Roman-Gat was freed from Gaza during the first ceasefire in November 2023 but his sister-in-law Carmel Gat was killed in captivity last year.
A long journey
It’s the first step on a long journey to healing for the hostages, whose condition wasn’t immediately known. Another 28 who are believed deceased are also to be handed over to Israel as part of the deal, although when wasn’t clear.
Many Israelis feel that the country won’t fully begin to recover from its collective trauma until their remains are brought back as well, bringing closure to their families too.
Ruby Chen, father of Itay Chen, who is believed to be dead, said those with relatives who aren’t coming home alive will urge U.S. President Donald Trump not to forget them.
“The hostage families meeting President Trump today will express from the bottom of their heart their sincere gratitude,” Chen said. “However we will also highlight the mission is not complete and we will not be able to begin to rehabilitate without the last deceased hostage returned to his family.”
For observant Jews, Monday held an extra special meaning.
Both the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and the release of hostages overlapped with the Jewish people’s celebration of the holiday of Simchat Torah, which marks the beginning of a new annual cycle of the reading of the scrolls. It is one of the most joyous days of the Jewish calendar, with festive dancing around a Torah.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 as hostages.
In Israel’s ensuing offensive, more than 67,600 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants but says around half the deaths were women and children. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government, and the U.N. and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties.
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Associated Press journalists Moshe Edri in Lavon, Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv and Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war