GAZA/CAIRO/JERUSALEM — Hamas released three Israeli hostages and Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners on Sunday, the first day of a ceasefire suspending a 15-month-old war that has devastated the Gaza Strip and inflamed the Middle East.

The truce allowed Palestinians to return to bombed-out neighborhoods to begin rebuilding their lives, while relief trucks delivered much-needed aid. Elsewhere in Gaza, crowds cheered Hamas fighters who emerged from hiding.

Fireworks were launched in celebration as buses carrying the Palestinian prisoners arrived in Ramallah on the West Bank, where thousands of people waited to welcome them. Those freed from Israeli prisons included 69 women and 21 teenage boys from the West Bank and Jerusalem, according to Hamas.

In Tel Aviv, hundreds of Israelis cheered and wept in a square outside the defense headquarters as a live broadcast from Gaza showed three female hostages getting into a Red Cross vehicle surrounded by Hamas fighters.

The Israeli military said Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari had been reunited with their mothers and released a video showing them in apparent good health. Ms. Damari, who lost two fingers when she was shot the day she was abducted, smiled and embraced her mother as she held up a bandaged hand.

“I would like you to tell them: Romi, Doron and Emily — an entire nation embraces you. Welcome home,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a commander by phone.

At Sheba Medical Center, the women were reunited with their families in long embraces that went from tears to laughter. A smiling Ms. Damari was draped in an Israeli flag. They were among more than 250 people abducted and 1,200 killed in a Hamas raid on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has said.

More than 47,000 Palestinians have since been killed in Israeli attacks, according to medical officials in Gaza. Nearly the entire 2.3 million population of Gaza is homeless. Around 400 Israeli soldiers have also died.

The truce calls for fighting to stop, aid to be sent in to Gaza and 33 of the nearly 100 remaining Israeli and foreign hostages to go free over the six-week first phase in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Many of the hostages are believed to be dead.

In the north of the Gaza Strip, Palestinians picked their way through a devastated landscape of rubble and twisted metal that had been bombed into oblivion in the war’s most intense fighting.

“I feel like at last I found some water to drink after being lost in the desert for 15 months,” said Aya, who said she had been displaced from her Gaza City home for more than a year.

The first phase of the truce took effect following a three-hour delay during which Israeli warplanes and artillery pounded the Gaza Strip.

That last-minute blitz killed 13 people, Palestinian health authorities said. Israel blamed Hamas for being late to deliver the names of hostages it would free, and said it had struck terrorists. Hamas said the holdup in providing the list was technical.

“Today the guns in Gaza have gone silent,” US President Joseph R. Biden said on his last full day in office, welcoming a truce that had eluded US diplomacy for more than a year. “We’ve reached this point today because of the pressure Israel built on Hamas, backed by the United States.”

For Hamas, the truce provided an opportunity to emerge from the shadows after 15 months in hiding. Hamas policemen dressed in blue police uniforms swiftly deployed in some areas, and armed fighters drove through the southern city of Khan Younis, where a crowd cheered, “Greetings to Al-Qassam Brigades,” the group’s armed wing.

“All the resistance factions are staying in spite of Netanyahu,” one fighter told Reuters. 

TRUMP AIDE: ‘HAMAS WILL NEVER GOVERN GAZA’
There is no detailed plan in place to govern Gaza after the war, much less rebuild it. Any return of Hamas will test the patience of Israel, which has said it will resume fighting unless the militant group is fully dismantled.

Hardline National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir quit the cabinet over the ceasefire, though his party said it would not try to bring down Netanyahu’s government. The other most prominent hardliner, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, stayed in the government but said he would quit if the war ends without Hamas completely destroyed.

The truce took effect on the eve of Monday’s inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump. Mr. Trump’s national security adviser-designate, Mike Waltz, said that if Hamas reneges on the agreement, the United States would support Israel “in doing what it has to do.”

“Hamas will never govern Gaza. That is completely unacceptable,” he said.

The streets in shattered Gaza City were already busy with groups of people waving the Palestinian flag and filming the scenes on their mobile phones. Several carts loaded with household possessions travelled down a thoroughfare scattered with rubble and debris.

Ahmed Abu Ayham, 40, of Gaza City said that while the ceasefire may have spared lives, the losses and destruction made it no time for celebration.

“We are in pain, deep pain and it is time to hug one another and cry,” he said. — Reuters

DAVOS, Switzerland — Economic fears have escalated into grievances among 60% of people, with many believing hostile actions such as violence can be necessary to bring about change, according to a global poll by communications firm Edelman.

The survey of the 33,000 respondents across 28 countries showed severe levels of distrust in government and business, with many respondents viewing them as serving the narrow interests of the wealthy while regular people struggle.

It was released as the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos was set to kick off under the theme “Collaboration for the Intelligent Age.”

Four in 10 respondents approved of hostile acts to bring about change, including violence or threats, online attacks, intentionally spreading disinformation and damaging property, the survey showed. Among respondents aged 18 to 34, support for hostile actions was even higher at 53%.

The results are “profound,” said the firm’s CEO Richard Edelman. “We’ve now seen a slide over a 10-year period from fears, to polarization to grievance,” as the public becomes more anxious about the cost of living and job security tied to artificial intelligence (AI), he said.

Discontent stems from a lack of hope for the next generation, class divides among low- and high-income people, distrust in leaders including government officials, business executives and journalists, and confusion over credible information, the survey showed.

In Western democracies, respondents’ outlook for their countries being better for the next generation dropped to severe lows of 9% in France, 17% in the UK and 30% in the US. the survey found.

“Moving back from a grievance-based society will require a cross-institution effort to address issues like information integrity, affordability, sustainability, and the future of AI,” Mr. Edelman said. — Reuters

NEW YORK — On Saturday night, for the first time in five years, millions of American TikTok users who logged on for a late-night scroll were met with an unwelcome notice that their beloved app had been banned and shut down.

Their exile lasted less than 24 hours, ending when the Chinese-owned company restored service on Sunday after President-elect Donald Trump, who returns to power on Monday, said he would revive US access. But the TikTok masses had already started contemplating life without the app that has captivated nearly half of all Americans.

As users returned, some cringed at sappy goodbyes posted before the shutdown or thanked Mr. Trump on social media site X, while others wondered whether the TikTok world would ever be the same again.

“We’re back but at what cost?” one user mused on the platform.

Mr. Trump’s action to save TikTok, owned by ByteDance, represents a reversal from his first term in office. In 2020, he aimed to ban the short-video app over concerns the company could share Americans’ personal info with the Chinese government.

More recently, Mr. Trump has said he has “a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” crediting the app with helping him win over young voters in the 2024 election.

TikTok stopped working for US users late on Saturday before a law shutting it down on national security grounds took effect on Sunday.

Mr. Trump said he would “extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security.”

“I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

DON’T GO CHANGING
Though relieved, some users wonder if such a change to the company’s ownership structure would ultimately alter the TikTok experience.

“I think back to when Elon bought Twitter and how dramatically it shifted overall sentiment and how people interacted on the app. So that gives me a lot of concern,” said Kelly Sites, 38, referring to billionaire Elon Musk’s purchase of the social media site now known as X.

“I don’t want the magic of the algorithm to change,” said Sites, a part-time content creator based in Kansas City, Kansas.

The algorithms TikTok relies on for its operations are deemed core to the overall operations of ByteDance, which would make a sale of the app with algorithms highly unlikely, Reuters reported in April.

While questions linger about the future of TikTok, some users — particularly those who earn a living from it — lament their trust in the government will never be the same.

“I think that this is a very sad time in history,” said Richard “Chuck” Fasulo, 37, a mechanic and auto-influencer from Duchess County, New York.

Mr. Fasulo told Reuters that the app helped him dig his way out of debt, more than double his income and take his family on vacation for the first time last summer. Confronting the specter of losing the business opportunities that the app provided him was not a pleasant experience.

“I think that myself, like many others, have gained a lot of disdain for the US government,” said Mr. Fasulo, who has about 400,000 followers.

For others, however, relief is the important thing, no matter its source.

“I would choose a political stunt over losing TikTok forever,” Charlotte Warren, 31, a dating and relationships content creator based in Austin, Texas, told Reuters. Without TikTok, she said she could lose up to $60,000 in annual income, over 200,000 followers and was unsure if she would continue posting content to other platforms.

“I just wanted my app back.”  — Reuters