'Peace in the Holy Land' says Trump as Israeli and Palestinian prisoners freed

"The skies are calm, the guns are silent, the sirens are still and the sun rises on a Holy Land that is finally at peace," Trump told the Knesset, Israel's parliament, saying a "long nightmare" for both Israelis and Palestinians was over. Picture: PA

Hamas freed the last living Israeli hostages from Gaza on Monday under a ceasefire deal and Israel sent home busloads of Palestinian detainees, as US president Donald Trump told Israel's parliament that peace had arrived in the Holy Land.

The Israeli military said it had received all hostages confirmed to be alive, after their transfer from Gaza by the Red Cross. 

The announcement prompted cheering, hugging and weeping among thousands waiting at "Hostage Square" in Tel Aviv.

In Gaza, thousands of relatives, many weeping with joy, gathered at a hospital where buses brought home some of the nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees to be freed by Israel as part of the accord.

"The skies are calm, the guns are silent, the sirens are still and the sun rises on a Holy Land that is finally at peace," Trump told the Knesset, Israel's parliament, saying a "long nightmare" for both Israelis and Palestinians was over.

"Now it is time to translate these victories against terrorists on the battlefield into the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East," he said before departing for a summit in Egypt intended to cement the truce.

He arrived in the Egyptian beach resort of Sharm el-Sheikh about an hour before sundown for the gathering of more than 20 world leaders, which he was to chair alongside President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Large billboards showing a beaming Trump and Sisi with the words "welcome to the land of peace" lined the road from the airport to the conference centre. In remarks after landing, Trump thanked Sisi for his role as a mediator.

Withdrawal

The release of the last living hostages captured in the October 2023 Hamas attacks, which killed 1,200 Israeli, in return for around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees follows a ceasefire and partial Israeli withdrawal in the enclave.

Thousands of Palestinians have been able to return in the past few days to the ruins of homes they fled in the Gaza Strip, where health authorities say 68,000 people were killed in fighting that displaced nearly the entire 2.2 million-strong population.

However, formidable obstacles remain, even to securing an enduring ceasefire, much less to bringing a wider, more durable peace. Among the immediate issues still to be resolved: recovering the remains of another 26 Israeli hostages believed to have died and two whose fates are unknown.

Hamas says recovering the bodies could take time as not all burial sites are known. 

It said on Monday it would soon hand over four bodies and the Israeli military confirmed it had received two coffins and expected two more.

Aid supplies must be rushed into the enclave, where hundreds of thousands of people face famine.

UN aid chief Tom Fletcher underlined the need to "get shelter and fuel to people who desperately need it and to massively scale up the food and medicine and other supplies going in".