Israeli President Isaac Herzog is praising Donald Trump on Inauguration Day, calling him a “true friend” of the country and thanking him for his efforts to secure the release of hostages from Hamas. 

“On behalf of the people of Israel, I send my heartfelt congratulations to you, President Donald Trump on your inauguration as the 47th POTUS,” Herzog wrote on X. 

“You are a true friend of Israel. Thank you for your unwavering commitment to Israel’s security and to building a better future for our region. A special thank you for your commitment to bringing all our hostages home,” he continued. 

“We wish you and your administration great success in your service to the American people. Good luck!” Herzog added. 

FREED ISRAELI HOSTAGE SPEAKS OUT FOR FIRST TIME 

The comments come a day after Hamas released to Israel three hostages it has been holding in captivity for nearly 500 days, as part of a cease-fire and hostage release agreement. 

In exchange, Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners in the West Bank. 

“Let’s face it, the fact that President Trump had a clear message, ‘By my inauguration, I want to see hostages coming out, or else there will be hell to pay,’ made a huge impact in the Middle East, and we are hopeful that with his leadership, we’re going to see all 98 hostages coming out starting today with the three female hostages,” Ronen Neutra, whose son Omer was killed by Hamas terrorists, told Fox News on Sunday. 

ISRAEL RELEASES 90 PALESTINIAN PRISONERS AS PART OF CEASE-FIRE DEAL TO FREE HOSTAGES 

Emily Damari, right, and her mother Mandy are seen near kibbutz Reim, southern Israel after Emily was released from captivity by Hamas militants in Gaza on Sunday, Jan. 19. (AP/Israeli Army)

Trump said last week, “This EPIC cease-fire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November, as it signaled to the entire World that my Administration would seek Peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans, and our Allies.  

President Isaac Herzog shakes hands with President Biden while meeting at the White House on Nov. 12, 2024. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

“I am thrilled American and Israeli hostages will be returning home to be reunited with their families and loved ones,” he had written on Truth Social. 

Fox News’ Taylor Penley contributed to this report. 

Palestinians have recovered dozens of bodies buried under rubble in Gaza and are searching for thousands more as the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas continues to hold for a second day.

Medical sources told Al Jazeera on Monday that the bodies of 97 Palestinians have been recovered in the destroyed city of Rafah in southern Gaza since the ceasefire took effect the previous day with the release of the first three captives held by Hamas and 90 Palestinians from Israeli jails.

Israeli attacks on Gaza killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and wounded more than 111,000, according to local health authorities.

But the Palestinian Civil Defence agency said it estimated there are 10,000 bodies under destroyed structures across the strip.

At least 2,840 bodies were melted and there are no traces of them, said Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson of the Palestinian Civil Emergency Services in Gaza.

Meanwhile, many displaced residents returning to their neighbourhoods found them almost unrecognisable due to the devastation from more than 15 months of war.

“[The level of destruction] was a big shock, and the amount [of people] feeling shocked is countless because of what happened to their homes. It’s destruction, total destruction,” Mohamed Gomaa, who lost his brother and nephew in the war, told the Reuters news agency.

“It’s not like an earthquake or a flood, no no. What happened is a war of extermination.”

Meanwhile, more than 630 aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip on Sunday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Monday, with at least 300 of those trucks going to the enclave’s north, where the UN said famine looms.

With a growing flow of aid into the Palestinian enclave, residents flocked into markets with some expressing happiness at the lower prices and the presence of new food items like imported chocolates.

“The prices have gone down, the war is over and the crossing is open to more goods,” Aya Mohammad-Zaki, a displaced woman from Gaza City sheltering in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, told Reuters.

Attention is also starting to shift to the rebuilding of the coastal enclave, which the Israeli military demolished in retaliation for Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Those assaults killed 1,139 people with about 250 taken captive into Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

A UN damage assessment released this month showed that clearing more than 50 million tonnes of rubble left in the aftermath of Israel’s bombardment could take 21 years and cost up to $1.2bn.

A UN report from last year said rebuilding Gaza’s shattered homes could take at least until 2040 but could drag on for many decades. The debris is believed to be contaminated with asbestos because some refugee camps struck during the war are known to have been built with the material.

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

Isolated incidents as ceasefire largely holds

Residents and officials in Gaza said on Monday that, for the most part, the ceasefire appeared to be holding – although there were incidents of violence.

Two Palestinian civilians, one of them a teenage boy, were killed by Israeli snipers in Rafah, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Eight Palestinians, including children, were also injured on Monday as a result of Israeli gunfire in Rafah.

The Israeli military said it fired warning shots towards people who approached soldiers deployed according to the ceasefire agreement.

Meanwhile, Mohamad Elmasry, a media studies professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, said Israeli media are now increasingly focusing on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war on Gaza.

“They’re calling this a spectacular failure,” he told Al Jazeera, stressing that Netanyahu failed to fulfil his promise to eliminate Hamas.

“And now he has to watch on all the TV screens Hamas fighters dressed in their fatigues escorting Israeli captives to their vehicles,” the academic added.

“He’s watching as Hamas will continue to govern Gaza and oversee the security situation, the humanitarian aid situation and all elements of this ceasefire. Hamas has not been eliminated, and this is very embarrassing for Netanyahu.”

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About 100 hostages, living and dead, are thought still to be held in Gaza, most of them taken in the deadly Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Thirty-three of them will be released during an initial six-week phase of the cease-fire, including female soldiers and civilians, children, men over 50 and sick and wounded people, according to the agreement.

“The vast majority” of the 33 hostages to be released in the six-week first phase of the cease-fire are alive, an Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, said Sunday in a discussion on social media.

Video released by the Israeli military showed the three hostages being reunited with their families at Sheba Hospital in Israel.

In one clip, one of the returned hostages, Romi Gonen, is surrounded in an embrace by members of her family as they tearfully comfort one another. Yarden Gonen, her sister, who had traveled around the world in the past year to lobby for Romi’s release, jumps up and down in the video as the family hugs. In another clip, another released hostage, Doron Steinbrecher, tearfully embraces loved ones.

Romi Gonen

Ms. Gonen was 23 when she was captured as she was trying to leave the Nova music festival in southern Israel when Hamas attacked. She was speaking at the time to her mother, Meirav Gonen, who said she had been shot and was bleeding.

Last February, Meirav Gonen released a recording of her last phone call with her daughter. She told the Israeli news media that Romi was a strong and happy person who often went to raves.

In the early weeks of the war, her mother expressed concern that Israeli military operations in Gaza could endanger the hostages.

Romi Gonen’s older sister, Yarden, told The New York Times in February that she regularly went to a plaza in Tel Aviv where families of hostages have held vigils.

“None of us is doing anything remotely related to our previous lives,” she said.

Emily Damari

Ms. Damari, 27 at the time she was captured, is the only hostage with British citizenship who was still being held this month. She was taken from her home in Kibbutz Kfar Azza in southern Israel and was seen by a neighbor in her own car, driven by a militant, heading toward Gaza.

Ms. Damari was raised in Israel but traveled to Britain often, according to her mother, British-born Mandy Damari, who was in Israel last month to speak with officials and the news media and to plead for a hostage and cease-fire deal. She said that her daughter had been shot and that she feared for her life, telling the BBC that she had welcomed the threats from President-elect Donald J. Trump that there would be “all hell to pay” if no deal was reached by his inauguration.

Last January, a hostage who had been released from Gaza, Dafna Elyakim, told the Israeli news media that she and her younger sister had been taken into Hamas’s underground tunnels, where they met other female hostages, including Ms. Damari.

On the eve of the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks, Mandy Damari spoke at an event in Hyde Park in London, where she described her daughter as a soccer fan who enjoyed a drink and had “the classic British sense of humor, with a dash of Israeli chutzpah thrown in for good measure.”

On Sunday, Mandy Damari thanked “everyone who never stopped fighting for Emily throughout this horrendous ordeal.” But, she said in a statement, “for too many other families the impossible wait continues.”

The Israeli military also released a picture of Emily Damari and her mother that showed her missing two fingers on her left hand. Ms. Damari was shot in the hand on Oct. 7, 2023.

Doron Steinbrecher

Ms. Steinbrecher, who was 30 when she was captured from her home in Kibbutz Kfar Azza, is a veterinary nurse with Romanian and Israeli citizenship. According to Israeli news media, she was in touch with her family on the kibbutz when the militants attacked, telling her parents that they had smashed her windows and shot into her room.

“They’ve arrived, they have me,” she said in a subsequent voice message sent to friends.

Last January, Hamas released a video clip of Ms. Steinbrecher and two other captives, Daniella Gilboa and Karina Ariev, in which they pleaded for their release.

Last March, on her 31st birthday, the Jewish News Syndicate published an interview with her mother, Simona Steinbrecher, who said that she had looked pale and thin in the video. She said she was concerned that Ms. Steinbrecher was not getting the daily medication she needed, though she did not specify what that was.

“She’s a strong woman, but it’s terrible being there,” Simona Steinbrecher said.

On Sunday, the family of Doron Steinbrecher issued a statement celebrating her release that thanked the Israeli people and expressed gratitude to Mr. Trump “for his significant involvement and support, which meant so much to us.” The statement did not mention President Biden or any Israeli leaders.