Gaza Hostages Are Free After Two Years of War

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Caitlin McCabe (0:19)

Trump lands in Israel as Hamas releases all living hostages, capping two years of war.

Donald Trump (0:25)

In every country, they're dancing in the streets. That's a great deal.

It's a unique period in time.

Caitlin McCabe (0:34)

Plus, the president threatens to send long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine to force a peace deal with Russia. And Paramount makes a bold move to buy a company twice its size. It's Monday, October 13th. I'm Caitlin McCabe for The Wall Street Journal, and here's the AM Edition of What's News. The top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

We begin today in Gaza, where a significant exchange is unfolding. All 20 living Israeli hostages have been released by Hamas, and are now in Israeli hands. Thousands of people in Tel Aviv erupted in cheers and applause as they watched live footage of the first group of hostages being handed over. The release of the hostages are the first steps of a ceasefire deal agreed to last week, in which some say could lead to lasting peace in the Middle East. Journal correspondent Jared Malsin is with us. Jared, it's a pivotal morning after more than two years of war. Can you put this into context for us?

Jared Malsin (1:40)

This is a moment of high emotion in Israel and in the Palestinian territories. You have in Tel Aviv thousands of people in hostages square, which is the emotional heart of the movement to free the Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. And then also in Gaza, crowds gathering around a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip, awaiting the release of Palestinian prisoners who are set to be freed in exchange for those hostages. The release of the 20 remaining living Israeli hostages is the culmination of two years of trauma for both of these peoples, the Palestinian people and the Israeli people. This ceasefire that's gone into force in the Gaza Strip, finally giving a reprieve for the nearly two million Palestinians who have been living through the war. And a very, very significant moment in this crisis that began when Hamas launched its attack on southern Israel on October 7th, 2023, killing about 1200 people and laying waste to a whole stretch of southern Israel. And I think the hope for many people is that this is an opportunity to finally turn a page on that.

There's obviously a lot of uncertainty in terms of how this is going to play out, a lot of fragility to the current deal that has put the ceasefire in place. But for now, it's a moment of high emotions as families on both sides are reunited.

Caitlin McCabe (3:12)

And the first hostages were released just moments before President Trump landed in Israel. It seems safe to say he has played a significant role in bringing the ceasefire about.

Jared Malsin (3:23)

Trump's arrival in Israel is significant because he used the threat of him coming to the region really to help force through the deal. When he announced that a deal had been done on Wednesday night, there was still actually a lot that was up in the air in the negotiating rooms. And what he did was he forced the hand of both parties saying, get this done because I'm coming. And it really put everyone in a position of having to negotiate the remaining details, or be in a position where they'd be saying no to the visiting president. And that's how this came together. And that's what we saw this morning with Air Force One touching down just minutes after the release of the first group of hostages. And that's really significant in terms of how he was able to use his kind of unorthodox style of diplomacy to get this done.

Caitlin McCabe (4:15)

Jared, Trump has been sounding positive about the prospects of long-term peace, telling reporters that the war is over. Today, he's meeting with several world leaders in Egypt to discuss the ceasefire plan. But what kind of obstacles are there to lasting peace?

Jared Malsin (4:30)

In the region in general, I think there's a sense that this deal is a hostage deal. It gets the hostages out, it gets Palestinian prisoners released, and it gets a ceasefire in place in Gaza for now. The longer-term aspects of the plan have a lot of fragility built into them. In the sense that there still needs to be a negotiation around an actual Israeli withdrawal. And longer-term, one of the concerns from the Palestinian side is that this plan does not provide a clear path to Palestinian statehood. No one really knows big picture whether there would be some kind of political resolution that would actually stop this conflict in the long term. There doesn't seem to be a concrete plan for that right now.