The first three hostages arrive in Israel after the liberation of Hamas. Here’s what we know.

First three hostages freed from Gaza in fragile deal ceasefire agreement and release of hostages between Israel and Hamas entered into force on Sunday arrived in Israel, the army announced. Their mothers were waiting to meet them.

The three women – identified by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum as Romi Gonen, 24, Doron Steinbrecher, 31, and Emily Damari, 28 – were handed over by Hamas activists to the Red Cross around 10:30 a.m. am EST, 5:30 p.m. local time. They had been detained since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

The Red Cross handed them over to the Israeli Defense Forces in Israel to undergo initial health checks at special reception centers near the Gaza border, a senior IDF official said.

Brett McGurk, the Biden administration’s National Security Council Middle East and North Africa coordinator, said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday that he had spoken to his Israeli counterparts conditions of the hostages.

“I know they’re alive,” McGurk said. “They were held in deplorable conditions for 470 days, but the Israelis have a very good system to care for them, and they will receive the care they need and be reunited with their families.”

Some 250 people were kidnapped during the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, which sparked 15 months of war. Around 100 hostages are still in Gaza, after the others were freed or their bodies were found.

Hours before Sunday’s ceasefire, which many hope will be the first step in ending the war, Israel announced that it had recovered the body of Oron Shaul, a soldier killed in Israel’s war with Hamas in 2014 and whose remains were detained by the authorities. activists since.

McGurk and Trump’s new national security adviser, Mike Waltz, told “Face the Nation” that Israeli-American soldier Edan Alexander should be released in the next phase. “We’re going to get him out, period,” Waltz said.

Here’s what we know about them:

Romi Gonen, 24 years old

Gonen was kidnapped during the Nova music festival in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. That morning, Gonen’s mother, Merav, and his eldest daughter spent nearly five hours talking to Gonen while that the activists were marauding in the festival grounds. Gonen told her family that roads clogged with abandoned cars made escape impossible and that she would seek shelter in bushes.

Then she spoke words that continue to resonate in her mother’s head every day. “Mom, I was shot, the car was shot, everyone was shot. …I’m hurt and I’m bleeding. Mom, I think I’m going to die,” she said that Romi had saidduring a press conference a few weeks after the kidnapping.

Over the past 15 months, Merav has been one of the most vocal voices in favor of the return of the hostages, appearing almost daily on Israeli news programs and traveling on missions abroad.

“We are doing everything we can so that the world does not forget,” Merav told the Associated Press. the sixth month of the Hamas attack. “Every day we wake up and take a deep breath, a deep breath, and keep walking, keep doing the things that will bring her back.”

Émilie Damari, 28 years old

Damari is a British-Israeli citizen kidnapped from her apartment in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a communal farming village hit hard by the Hamas assault. She lived in a small apartment in a neighborhood for young adults. The militants broke through the kibbutz border fence and ransacked the neighborhood.

Kibbutz Kfar Aza said Damari was often the “glue that held her close-knit group of friends together” and was always organizing gatherings of friends around the best barbecue area in the entire kibbutz.

“All Emily’s mom Mandy wants to do is hug Emily. But she won’t believe it until she sees it,” said Emily Cohen, representing the family Damari. BBC News partner with CBS before his release.

Doron Steinbrecher, 31 years old

Steinbrecher is an animal-loving veterinary nurse and neighbor of Damari on Kibbutz Kfar Aza.

On October 7, 2023, at 10:20 a.m., Steinbrecher called his mother. “Mom, I’m scared. I hide under the bed and I hear them trying to get into my apartment,” her brother Dor recalled, according to the Associated Press.

Steinbrecher was featured in a video released by Hamas on January 26, 2024, along with two other female Israeli soldiers.

How will the other hostages be freed

Gonen, Steinbrecher and Damari are the first three hostages to be released under the new ceasefire and hostage release agreement between Israel and Hamas, which will be implemented in stages.

The first phase of the ceasefire calls for Hamas to release 33 hostages over six weeks. They include women, children and hostages over the age of 50, according to a draft viewed by CBS News.

On the first day of the agreement, three hostages were to be released by Hamas. On the seventh day, four hostages were to be released. After that, Hamas would release three hostages taken in Israel every seven days, starting with the living, then returning the bodies of those who died.

More than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israel would also be released during the first phase of the deal. Israel was to release 90 prisoners in exchange for the freedom of the first three hostages.

“These are critical and emotional times for the families and for all of Israel,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement. “While we rejoice for each hostage who returns home, we remain deeply concerned for our loved ones who may be left behind. Now more than ever, we need the public to be with us until the return of the last hostage. We will not abandon anyone. Only by joining forces can we guarantee the return of all, the living for rehabilitation and the deceased for a proper burial.