As Truce Takes Effect, Israelis and Gazans Allow Themselves

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Dow Jones NewsOct 10, 2:51 PM UTC
DJ As Truce Takes Effect, Israelis and Gazans Allow Themselves to Hope -- WSJ

By Suha Ma'ayeh and Feliz Solomon

 

TEL AVIV -- For a short while on Thursday, Jaber Madhoun caught a glimpse of something he doesn't often see at the community kitchen he runs with his wife in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah: relief.

 

Negotiators said they had reached a deal to exchange the remaining hostages for Palestinian prisoners and halt the fighting. The war that had upended life for two years and devastated Gaza appeared as though it would stop -- at least for now.

 

Outside the kitchen, men fired celebratory gunshots in the air. Women ululated -- a rousing, high-pitched vocal sound usually reserved for joyous events like festivals and weddings. Crowds clapped and cheered, singing praises to Allah, Madhoun recalled.

 

"They needed hope," he said.

 

From the streets of Israel's main cities to the dismal displacement camps of the Gaza Strip, this week's deal was cause for celebration. After a monthslong deadlock, Israel and Hamas agreed to an initial phase of a plan brokered by President Trump that promises to pave the way toward peace.

 

As the truce takes hold, the euphoria that swept across a war-weary land is now giving way to a realization that Israelis and Palestinians now must confront the toll of the war and questions over what comes next.

 

Both Israel and the Palestinian territories have been forever changed by the conflict, sparked by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Gaza is in ruins and almost its entire population is displaced. Israel is more divided within and more isolated abroad.

 

People on both sides are also tempering their hopes that the deal will hold.

 

"We learned the hard way to be careful, there's been a lot of false hope in the past," said Rotem Cooper, whose parents were both kidnapped by Hamas from their kibbutz of Nir Oz. His mother was freed in late October 2023. His father later died in captivity. Cooper hopes the new agreement will finally bring him home to rest.

 

For Madhoun, 56, whose home in Gaza City was destroyed after he fled this summer with his wife and seven children, the challenges ahead seem more manageable than those behind him. As fighting neared, the family moved from place to place, settling each time in a flimsy tent only to be forced to pack up and flee again.

 

"If the war hadn't stopped, things would've been even worse," he said.

 

The war in Gaza has been the longest, deadliest and most destructive in a decadeslong cycle of conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians. The 2023 attack by Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, killed about 1,200 people while 251 others were taken hostage. Since then, fighting has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who don't say how many were combatants.

 

The human toll of the war, and a defiance in the face of international criticism over it, led some of Israel's traditional Western allies to turn against it. Israel's growing isolation has widened fissures between its far-right and more globalist left, and caused soul-searching over how far a nation should go to defend itself.

 

Under this week's agreement, Israeli troops have been ordered to halt their fight against Hamas and begin a staged withdrawal from the enclave. In the coming days, Hamas must return all 48 remaining hostages, starting with 20 who are still alive and then the bodies of the rest, which may take more time to locate and recover. In exchange, Israel will free some 2,000 Palestinians held in its prisons.

 

Meanwhile, negotiations will continue toward a more permanent settlement. Much is unresolved.

 

In Gaza and in Israel, joy and relief at the step toward peace -- however piecemeal and fragile -- burst out into the open. Thousands of people poured into a courtyard in Tel Aviv known as Hostage Square to bang on drums, dance and sing with strangers. They waved Israeli and American flags, one woman held a sign reading: "WE TRUMP, He who saves just one life saves an entire world."

 

"I came to celebrate, with everybody else who's here, to feel the joy that has come from so many months and months of pain," said Caroline Glasser, a 64-year-old retiree who joined the crowds on Thursday.

 

Many Israelis feel that returning every last hostage should have been the nation's priority since the Oct. 7 attack. Udi Goren, whose cousin, Tal Haimi, died defending his kibbutz, said the government must bring the hostages home after failing to protect them that day.

 

"The most basic thing these communities and our families need to recuperate from that and rebuild is bringing back everybody that was taken," he said.

 

In Gaza, some said they felt a sense of disbelief. The cease-fire that took effect midday Friday is the third pause in fighting since the war began. Earlier truces, in late 2023 and early 2025, collapsed and were followed with even more intensive conflict.

 

The reprieve has also given Gazans a moment to take stock of their surroundings, and to despair at what they see. Ahmad Tanini, a 34-year-old father of three who lives in a tent camp in the coastal area of al-Mawasi, said that even if the fighting stops, much of Gaza is already destroyed.

 

"We still have no functioning hospitals, no homes, no minimum conditions for human life," he said. He and his family didn't take part in celebrations.

 

Still, for young Gazans like Hazem Srour, hope is the only option. At 22, he says he got through the war by focusing on his accounting studies -- even when his university was forced to shut down and he had to adjust to irregular, remote courses -- and founding a co-working space with a friend to foster community for others like him who have struggled to keep some semblance of a normal life.

 

If peace can last, he said, he wants to revive his business so he can settle in a house, buy furniture, get married and build a family.

 

"Those are the goals I have right now," he said.

 

Write to Feliz Solomon at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

 

October 10, 2025 10:51 ET (14:51 GMT)

 
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