Hundreds of freed Palestinian prisoners and detainees have been welcomed with tears and screams of joy as they were released by Israel to be reunited with their families in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The release involved about 250 prisoners who had been convicted of crimes including murder and deadly attacks against Israelis – and about 1,700 detainees from Gaza who had been held by Israel without charge.

As prisoners exited a Red Cross bus in Ramallah, many draped in traditional Keffiyeh scarves, they looked pale and gaunt, with some struggling to walk.

They were freed as part of an exchange in which 20 Israeli hostages were released by Hamas, with the remains of some deceased hostages also expected to be released.

“He is ready to embrace freedom,” said Amro Abdullah, 24, who was waiting for his cousin Rashid Omar, 48, who was arrested in July 2005 and sentenced to life in prison by an Israeli court after being found guilty of murder and other crimes.

“I want peace,” Mr Abudullah said. “I want to live a happy life, safe and peaceful, without occupation and without restrictions.”

It is thought about 100 prisoners were released into the West Bank, with many others set to be deported and a small number freed into East Jerusalem.

Israel made clear before the release process that it wanted to avoid the jubilant scenes that surrounded prisoners arriving in Ramallah during previous hostage deals, when large crowds waved Hamas flags.

Many families were reluctant to speak to the media, saying they had been warned against doing so by the Israeli military.

In Gaza, families gathered at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in the hope of being reunited with their loved ones. A field hospital adjacent to the main hospital building was set up to receive them.

“This is a very beautiful feeling – happy, a day of joy,” said Muhammad Hasan Saeed Dawood, 50, who told the BBC he was there to collect his son who he says was arrested by Israeli forces at a checkpoint.

“We call it a national holiday, that our detainees are being released despite the cost of the war, the martyrs, the injured, and the destruction in Gaza.”

Khalil Muhammad Abdulrahman Al-Qatrous, who was also there to collect his son who he said had been detained for about three months, said: “There is joy, and there is pain, and there is happiness, and there is sorrow.”

“We came here waiting for their release. We came here expecting them to arrive at 10:00, and now it is past 12:00, and we are still waiting, on edge.”

Ahead of the release in Ramallah, ambulances from the Palestine Red Crescent Society set up in preparation to treat any injured prisoners.

“The crying and the silence, this shows you how the families are feeling,” said Ibrahim Ifani, 23, a volunteer nurse for the organisation.

“For all the people in Palestine, it’s a deep, deep emotion,” he said.

Multiple medics and family members said the prisoners who were released in Ramallah had faced beatings in recent days prior to their release.

The BBC cannot verify claims of mistreatment in Israeli prisons. But Israel’s top court said last month that Palestinian prisoners were not being given adequate food.

The BBC has also previously reported on Palestinians being tortured in Israeli detention.

Aya Shreiteh, 26, said from the Palestinian Prisoners Club “their rights were violated in the most serious ways”.

“Most of the prisoners in the past year were subjected to deliberate starvation and exposure to illness,” she told the BBC.

“Their bodies are frail from starvation, and they’ve suffered from beatings.”

“But today gives us hope that there will always be an inevitable freedom, no matter the circumstances,” she added.

The hostage and prisoner exchange formed part of phase one of Donald Trump’s peace plan aimed at ending the war in Gaza, which was triggered by the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

Israel launched a retaliatory military offensive which saw more than 67,682 Palestinians killed, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

A ceasefire took hold on Friday – and negotiations are now expected to follow over the latter phases of Trump’s peace plan.

US President Donald Trump has said “the war is over” as he travels to Israel for the release of hostages from Gaza under the ceasefire deal agreed between Israel and Hamas.

Speaking on board Air Force One, he said the ceasefire would hold and a “board of peace” would quickly be set up for Gaza, which he said looked like a “demolition site”.

He also praised the roles of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Qatar, one of the mediators.

The deadline for Hamas to release all the hostages it is still holding in Gaza is midday local time (10:00 BST). Later on Monday, Trump will travel to Egypt for an international summit aiming to end the war.

The war was triggered by the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

Since then, more than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s military response, including more than 18,000 children, the Hamas-run health ministry says.

The ceasefire in Gaza took effect on Friday morning after Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase of the 20-point peace plan brokered by Trump, with the next phases still to be negotiated.

Twenty of the Israeli hostages are believed to be alive, and Hamas is also due to hand over the remains of up to 28 deceased hostages.

Israel should also release around 250 Palestinian prisoners and 1,700 detainees from Gaza, while increased amounts of aid should enter the Strip. An Israeli government spokesperson said they would be released once the living hostages reach Israeli territory.

Trump told reporters the ceasefire was “going to hold”, adding “everybody is happy, and I think it’s going to stay that way”.

On Saturday hundreds of thousands of Israelis attended a rally in Tel Aviv and chanted their gratitude to the US leader.

Many details for the later phases of the peace plan could be hard to reach agreement on – such as the governance of Gaza, the extent of Israeli troop withdrawal, and the disarming of Hamas.

Trump will land in Israel on Monday, where he will address the country’s parliament the Knesset.

He will then travel to lead a summit in Sharm el-Sheikh alongside Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Egypt’s foreign ministry said a “document ending the war in the Gaza Strip” was expected to be signed.

Leaders from more than 20 countries are expected to attend, including UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said that once the hostages were returned, the military would destroy underground tunnels in Gaza built by Hamas.

Aid trucks began entering Gaza on Sunday and hundreds more were queuing at the border.

Palestinians crowded around the convoys arriving in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

Speaking to the BBC earlier on Sunday, Unicef’s James Elder said dozens of trucks had entered the Strip but that this fell short of what was needed.

The UN estimates that at least 600 aid trucks are needed every day to start addressing Gaza’s humanitarian crisis.

In August, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declared a famine in parts of the territory, including Gaza City.

Israel, however, rejects the IPC report, and its foreign ministry says the conclusions are “based on Hamas lies”. Israeli military aid body Cogat says the report ignores the “extensive humanitarian efforts undertaken in Gaza”.

Palestinians returning to northern Gaza have described scenes of devastation, with many of them finding their homes reduced to rubble. Rescue workers have warned there could be unexploded ordnance and bombs in the area.

Amjad Al Shawa, who heads a Palestinian organisation coordinating with aid groups, estimated 300,000 tents were needed to temporarily house 1.5 million displaced Gazans.

Hamas has recalled about 7,000 members of its security forces to reassert control over areas of Gaza recently vacated by Israeli troops, according to local sources.

At least 27 people have been killed in fierce clashes between Hamas security forces and armed members of the Dughmush family in Gaza City, in one of the most violent internal confrontations since the end of major Israeli operations in the enclave.

Hundreds of thousands of people have held a rally in Tel Aviv, ahead of the expected release of Israeli hostages by Hamas.

Addressing the crowds, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said the hostages “are coming home” and praised Donald Trump for making a Gaza ceasefire and hostage return deal possible.

In Gaza, Palestinian officials said about 500,000 people had returned to northern Gaza – which lies in ruins – in the past two days, following the withdrawal of Israeli troops.

Meanwhile Egypt confirmed it would host a summit on Monday to finalise an agreement aimed at ending the war.

More than 20 leaders including Trump would attend the summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, an Egyptian presidential spokesperson said. French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer are confirmed to be travelling to Egypt on Monday.

Trump is expected to visit Israel on Monday before heading to Egypt. His daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner also addressed the Tel Aviv rally on Saturday.

Under the ceasefire and hostage release deal announced on Thursday, Hamas was given 72 hours – until 12:00 local time (09:00 GMT) on Monday – to release all the 48 hostages it is still holding after two years of war, 20 of whom are assumed to be alive.

Aviv Havron, whose family members were murdered and others kidnapped in the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas, told the BBC in Tel Aviv: “It’s so important for the community… that they come back. Without this, we can’t restart our lives.

“My sisters and two brothers in law were murdered. Seven of my family members were kidnapped – my older sister was kidnapped, her daughter, her grandchildren. Four bodies of Be’eri [community] members are still in Gaza,.”

Shulamit and David Ginat, who also attended the Tel Aviv rally, told the BBC all the hostages must be saved.

“They’re our brothers and sisters. We want to heal again. We want to stop the war, stop the pain and heal again,” Shulamit said.

Many in the crowd yelled “Thank you, Trump!” – but also booed when Witkoff mentioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Speaking just afterward, the couple said they were angry at him over the failure to prevent the 7 October attack, the war and the failure to bring the hostages home sooner.

“He wants to continue the war only because he wants to stay prime minister,” David said.

In Gaza, Hamas has called up thousands of fighters to reassert control over areas of Gaza recently vacated by Israeli troops, according to local sources.

The Hamas mobilisation had been widely anticipated amid growing uncertainty about who will govern Gaza once the war ends and fears of internal violence. There have also been reports of armed clashes between Hamas and Gaza clans.

Displaced Palestinians have continued to move north in Gaza in large numbers, in many cases arriving to find their homes destroyed.

“There is no house anymore. Everything is gone,” lawyer Mosa Aldous said over the phone from Gaza City.

Raja Salmi, 52, told AFP she reached Gaza City’s Rimal neighbourhood to find her home also gone.

“I stood before it and cried. All those memories are now just dust,” she said.

Under the terms of the ceasefire and hostage release deal, the amount of aid entering Gaza is due to be scaled up but the World Food Programme (WFP) told the BBC that a surge of aid lorries had “not yet” entered Gaza, reporting only two to three lorries entering the territory daily.

With full access, WFP, a UN agency, said it intended to restore its regular food distribution system, boosting aid through 145 distribution points across Gaza.

Cogat, the Israeli military body overseeing the entry of aid into Gaza, said 500 trucks had entered on Thursday of which around 300 were distributed inside Gaza by the UN and other organisations.

A recent report by the world’s leading hunger monitor Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), backed by the UN, estimated that 500,000 people in Gaza – a quarter of the territory’s population – were suffering from famine.

Israel has repeatedly denied that starvation is taking place in Gaza, and Netanyahu has said that where there is hunger, it is the fault of aid agencies and Hamas.

About 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage in the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 on southern Israel.

Israel responded by launching a military offensive that has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he hopes to announce the release of hostages being held in Gaza “in the coming days”.

In a televised statement, he also said “Hamas will be disarmed and Gaza will be demilitarised – either the easy way or the hard way, but it will be achieved.”

The comments came after Hamas released a statement on Friday in which it agreed to free the hostages under a US peace plan, but did not mention disarmament and sought negotiations on other issues.

Hamas said on Saturday that Israel was continuing to commit “massacres”, after strikes hit Gaza in the morning, and it urged global pressure on Israel.

Indirect ceasefire talks between the parties are set to start in Egypt on Monday.

US President Donald Trump said he would “not tolerate delay” from Hamas to complete a deal.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said: “Hamas must move quickly, or else all bets will be off… Let’s get this done, FAST.”

He later posted that Israel “has agreed to the initial withdrawal line”, seeming to refer to various lines of Israeli troop withdrawal published alongside the US plan.

The 20-point plan proposes an immediate end to fighting and the release of 20 living Israeli hostages held by Hamas – as well as the remains of those thought to be dead – in exchange for hundreds of detained Gazans.

In a post on X the Israel Defense Forces said it had issued an order “to advance readiness for the implementation of the first phase of the Trump plan for the release of the hostages”. It added that the safety of IDF troops was “a top priority”.

Hamas was under pressure to accept at least some points of Trump’s plan. And this is exactly what they have done, with a “yes but” response. The group agreed to release all the remaining Israeli hostages, both living and dead, and that Gaza would be governed by technocrats.

But, among other things, the group did not mention whether it would disarm – a key Israeli demand.

In both Gaza and Israel, there has been cautious optimism that the current efforts could finally lead to a deal. One of the main differences now is the personal involvement of Trump, keen to be remembered – and rewarded – as the man who ended the war.

He has publicly urged Hamas to accept a deal, threatening even more military force, and there have been indications of his growing irritation with Israel’s leadership recently. But it is unclear if the Trump effect will be enough.

The reality is that the obstacles that prevented earlier deals essentially remain the same, including Hamas’ demand for a full Israeli withdrawal and a guarantee that Israel will not resume the war after the hostages are freed. The group knows it will be vulnerable without the hostages and will without doubt demand strong assurances that that will not happen.

There are suspicions elsewhere too. Many, inside and outside Israel, have accused Netanyahu of sabotaging previous efforts to prolong the war for political purposes.

He is supported by ultranationalist ministers who have threated to quit the coalition if the war ends without Hamas’ total defeat. That could lead to the collapse of the government. For now, the prime minister seems to be safe.

Domestically, however, polls have consistently suggested that most Israelis favour a deal with Hamas for the release of the hostages and the end of the war. The country remains deeply divided, exhausted by the war and increasingly isolated internationally.

There is huge momentum for a deal, but this is no guarantee that one will be reached.

Families of hostages have told the BBC they have hope their loved ones will be returned soon.

Vicky Cohen, whose son Nimrod is among 20 captives held in Gaza who are still believed to be alive, said she had woken on Saturday with a sense of expectation, but also “fear that something will go wrong”.

“It is a fragile situation and we don’t want to be disappointed again. And yet I feel hope that soon I will see Nimrod and I can hug [him] again,” she said.

Reactions to the proposals among Palestinians in Gaza have ranged from hope to deep suspicion.

Some fear Hamas has walked into a trap, and that Israel will reclaim its hostages only to resume the war. Others believe a historic opportunity has opened to end two years of conflict.

“Don’t get carried away by optimism,” Gaza resident Ibrahim Fares told the BBC. “There will be rounds of talks over the details. The devil is always in the detail.”

Meanwhile, Israeli military strikes have continued to hit Gaza, despite Trump telling Israel in a message on social media on Friday to “immediately stop the bombing”.

Three air strikes hit Gaza City early on Saturday, one of which killed one person and wounded several others, according to medical sources at al-Shifa Hospital.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said 66 people had been killed by Israeli military operations in Gaza in the past 24 hours, bringing the total since the war began to 67,074.

International journalists have been banned by Israel from entering the Gaza Strip independently since the start of the war nearly two years ago, making verifying claims from both sides difficult.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

Most of Gaza’s population has been repeatedly displaced and more than 90% of homes are estimated to be damaged or destroyed.