A sense of elation swept across Israel on Thursday as many awoke to the news that a deal meant to potentially end two years of war was reached overnight.

Some people had not even gone to sleep, glued to bulletins about the deal’s progress on their televisions and phones.

“What could feel better than the thought that all the hostages will return,” said Oz Isuk, 51, a Jerusalem resident who works in security. “Thank God we’ll end this saga, the war will end, we can finish a bad chapter in our lives and begin to rehabilitate ourselves as a nation.”

Around 3am (local time), shortly after a deal was announced, former hostages who had been released during a brief ceasefire earlier this year rushed to the central plaza in Tel Aviv that has been renamed “Hostages Square”. They came together to celebrate after an agonising, monthslong wait for the captives still held in Gaza, who were seized during the Hamas-led attack October 2023 attack that ignited the war.

Later in the morning, with much of the country off work to mark the festival of Sukkot, people danced in circles in Hostages Square. Along a main Tel Aviv thoroughfare, huge billboards had appeared that read, “Thank you President Trump”.

In Jerusalem, former hostages joined crowds of worshipers for prayers at the Western Wall.

The whole country seemed to be breathing a sigh of relief.

The family of Alon Ohel, a hostage, said on Thursday that “we received the news of the agreement that has been reached with tears of joy”. Ohel was captured at a roadside bomb shelter after fleeing the Nova music festival, where more than 380 people were killed.

Despite the general sense of exhilaration, some Israelis expressed frustration that it took their government so long to reach this point.

“There should be no doubt, this deal came about solely because of President Trump,” Yehuda Cohen, the father of 21-year-old Nimrod Cohen, a soldier held in Gaza, told Israel’s Channel 12 News on Thursday morning.

New York Times News Service