'New birth': Palestinians freed from Israeli jails return to loved ones

With huge crowds waiting to welcome them home, Palestinian political prisoners released by Israel on Monday under a Gaza cease-fire deal were overwhelmed with joy as they returned to their loved ones.

Some threw peace signs while others struggled to walk without assistance as they got off the bus and were met by a crowd cheering their return from Israel's jails to the West Bank city of Ramallah.

"It's an indescribable feeling, a new birth," Mahdi Ramadan, newly released, told AFP, flanked by his parents with whom he said he would spend his first evening out of prison.

Nearby, relatives exchanged hugs, young men in tears pressed their foreheads against each other — some even fainting from the emotion of seeing loved ones again after years, and sometimes decades, in jail.

The crowd chanted in unison: "Allahu akbar" (God is greater).

Earlier today

Palestinians cheer as freed prisoners begin to arrive home

Among the Palestinians to be released under the U.S.-brokered Gaza cease-fire deal, 250 are so-called security detainees and about 1,700 of them were detained by Israel during its war on Gaza.

Israel agreed to free them in exchange for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip, as part of the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to supposedly end Israel's two-year-long war on the Strip.

'No celebration is allowed'

Nour Soufan, now 27 years old, was due to meet his father Moussa, who was jailed a few months after his birth, outside of jail for the first time. Soufan and half a dozen relatives came to Ramallah from Nablus, in the north of the West Bank, and spent the night in their vehicle in anticipation of Moussa's release.

"I have never seen my father, and this is the first time I will see him. This is a very beautiful moment," Soufan said.

Like him, many had defied the travel restrictions that puncture daily life in the Palestinian territory, with Israeli army checkpoints proliferating over the past two years.

Palestinian media reported on Sunday that families of detainees had been contacted by Israeli authorities, asking them not to organize mass celebrations. "No reception is allowed, no celebration is allowed, no gatherings," said Alaa Bani Odeh, who came from the northern town of Tammun to find his 20-year-old son who had been jailed for four years.

AFP spoke to several prisoners who said that in their first hours of freedom, they would go home and stay with family.

During previous releases, mass gatherings had flooded entire streets in Ramallah, with people waving Palestinian flags as well as those of political factions including Hamas.

'I just want to live my life'

Dressed in the grey tracksuits of Israeli prisons, many prisoners also wore a black-and-white kuffiyeh around their necks — the traditional scarf that has become synonymous with the Palestinian cause for liberation.

Some of the newly released prisoners happily let themselves be carried away on relatives' shoulders.

"Prisoners live on hope ... Coming home, to our land, is worth all the gold in the world," said one freed detainee, Samer al-Halabiyeh. "God willing, peace will prevail, and the war on Gaza will stop," Halabiyeh added. "Now I just want to live my life."

Journalists rushed to talk to the prisoners, but many declined to engage, sometimes explaining that before their release, they were advised not to speak.

In the south Gaza city of Khan Younis, a crowd gathered near Nasser Hospital, in the hope of catching sight of the prisoners taken during the war with Israel. In the afternoon, thousands cheered to welcome their loved ones as they caught glimpse of the buses carrying them home.