Peaceful protesters in Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest city Auckland held an Easter prayer vigil honouring Palestinian political prisoners and the sacrifice of thousands of innocent lives as relentless Israeli bombing of displaced Gazans in tents killed at least 92 people in two days.

Organisers of the rally for the 80th week since the war began in October 2023 said they aimed for a shift in emphasis for quietness and meditation this spiritual weekend.

“This is dedicated to the Palestine Prisoners’ Day and those who have died, innocent of any crime — women, children, journalists, patients, friends, healthcare workers, those buried under rubble, non-military civilians,” said Kathy Ross of Palestinian Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA).

• READ MORE: Israel kills 92 in 2 days as Gaza’s Christians prepare for sorrowful Easter
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• More images and videos at today’s vigil

“All those starving and needing our help,” she added.

The organisers created a flowers and candles circle of peace with hibiscus blossoms in an area of Britomart that has become dubbed “Palestinian Corner”.

Placards declared “Free all Palestinian prisoners — all 10,000 people” and “Release the Palestinian prisoners.”

Palestinian fusion dancer and singer Rana Hamida, who last year sailed on the Freedom Flotilla boat Handala in an attempt to break the Israel siege of Gaza, spoke about how people could keep their spirits up in the face of such terrible atrocities, and sang a haunting cappella.

Calmness and strength
She also described how the air and wind could help protesters seek calmness and strength in spite of storms like Cyclone Tam that gusted across much of New Zealand yesterday on Good Friday causing havoc.

She spread her arms like wings as Palestinian flags fluttered strongly, saying: “The wind is now blowing in exactly the right direction.”

Another PSNA organiser, Del Abcede, spoke about the incarceration of Palestinian paediatrician Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, who was kidnapped by the Israeli military last December 27 — two days after Christmas – and has been held in detention without charge and under torture ever since.

“The reason why he was arrested is because he would not leave his hospital or his patients,” she said, adding that he had been held incommunicado for a long time.

“I want to dedicate a special honour and prayer for him and I hope that he will be released soon.”

Beaten in prison
Dr Safiya is suffering from a serious eye injury as a result of being beaten in Israeli prison, his lawyer has revealed to media.

According to lawyer Ghaid Qassem, Dr Abu Safiya has been classified by Israeli authorities as an “unlawful combatant” but has not yet been charged or received any court trials.

Despite a global campaign calling for him to be released from prison, Israeli authorities have continued to interrogate and torture Dr Abu Safiya.

Another speaker at the vigil, Dr David Robie, said he had been a journalist for 50 years and he found it “shameful” that the Western media — including Aotearoa New Zealand — failed to report the genocide and ethnic cleansing truthfully, and in fact was normalising the “horrendous crimes”.

He called for silent prayer for the at least 232 Gazan journalists killed — many along with their entire families — who had been courageously reporting the truth to the rest of the world.

Banners at the vigil referred to “Jesus [was] Palestinian – born in Bethlehem” and “Let Gaza live”. One placard declared “Jesus was an anti-imperialist Palestinian Jew who preached (and practised) radical love for all – not a violent bully bigot”.

Other vigils and protests took place across New Zealand at Easter weekend, especially in Ōtautahi Christchurch.

‘Violating’ religious status quo
Meanwhile, in Jerusalem reports were emerging that Israelis were “taking pride in violating the status quo” with religious traditions at Easter.

Xavier Abu Eid, a political scientist and former adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) from occupied East Jerusalem, explained on Al Jazeera that Jerusalem, “has a very central place” in the history of Palestinian Christians.

“We have to … understand what the Israeli occupation is doing to all Palestinians, because there is a concept. … It’s called the status quo. It’s understood and it’s under a very old agreement, centuries or older than the state of Israel,” he said.

Under the status quo, “the status of Christian and Muslim holy sites, including Al-Aqsa Mosque, for example, and the Holy Sepulchre, would be respected,” Dr Eid explained.

Despite this, he said, “Israeli government officials are taking pride in violating the status quo of Al-Aqsa Mosque compound by allowing Israeli settlers to pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque”.

He said the Israeli authorities are also trying to “turn the Mount of Olives, a very important place for this [Easter] celebration, into an Israeli national park”.

“So you’re talking about a community that feels under threat, not just from a national point of view with the Israeli government, pushing for ethnic cleansing and annexation, but also from the traditions that religiously we have kept here for generations,” he noted.

The UN Palestine relief agency UNRWA reports that after 1.5 years of war in Gaza, at least 51,000 Palestinians have been killed, 1.9 million people have been forcibly displaced multiple times, and the Israel military has blocked humanitarian aid from entering the besieged enclave for seven weeks.

A researcher says the Israeli prison system aims to subjugate the Palestinian people as rallies across the West Bank marked Prisoners’ Day today while yet another prisoner was reported dead.

“When you have the statistics that one in every five Palestinians has been arrested and you understand that 50 percent of our population are children under 18 — that means that roughly one in every two male adults has been arrested, subjugated and criminalised by Israeli authorities,” researcher and former detainee Al-Aboudi told Al Jazeera.

He is the director of the Bisan Center for Research and Development, based in Ramallah, occupied West Bank.

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The goal, said Al-Aboudi, who himself was detained in 2019, is to break Palestinian resilience.

“It’s only in Israeli jails that you will find doctors, professors, academics, physicists — the creme de la creme of Palestinian civil society is being targeted, incarcerated because Israel doesn’t want any kind of Palestinian agency, any Palestinian collective agency, any kind of Palestinian leadership,” he said.

Palestinians mark Prisoners’ Day on April 17 each year, reports Al Jazeera.

Human rights organisations warn that Palestinian detainees are subject to some of the worst conditions in Israeli prisons.

Detainees tell of torture, starvation
They are not allowed visits from family, lawyers or doctors, and former detainees tell of torture, abuse and starvation by Israeli prison authorities.

Musab Hassan Adili, a 20-year-old Palestinian prisoner from the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, was reported to have died on Wednesday night in Israel’s Soroka Hospital, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.

Palestine marches for prisoners’ freedom.    Video: Al Jazeera

Adili had been detained in March last year and sentenced to 13 months in Israeli prison. He was supposed to be released in a couple of days, his family said.

His death brings the number of Palestinian prisoners who have died in Israeli prisons to 64 since the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel in 2023.

‘Shameless double standard’
Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) has condemned what it calls the “clear and shameless double standard” of those demanding the release of Israeli captives in Gaza but staying silent while thousands of Palestinians languish in Israel’s jails, including women and children.

In a statement marking Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, PIJ said the “international community is tarnished by its silence regarding the suffering of tens of thousands of Palestinian prisoners, which has continued for decades”.

Of the nearly 10,000 Palestinians that support groups say are held in Israeli prisons, 3498 are held without charge or trial under what’s known as “administrative detention”.

PIJ said that 400 children and almost 30 women are among those held, while some 2000 people from Gaza have been arrested by Israeli forces since October 7, 2023, and that the prisoners who have died in Israeli jails suffer from medical negligence and torture.

According to PIJ, the October 7 attacks on Israel were launched “primarily to impose a genuine prisoner exchange deal that would free prisoners from the occupation’s prisons and alleviate the suffering of our people”.

“Their liberation has become an unwavering goal in the battle for dignity and freedom,” it said.

Hamas has accused Israel of “cheap and unacceptable blackmail” over its decision to halt the electricity supply to war-ravaged Palestinian enclave of Gaza to pressure the group into releasing the captives.

“We strongly condemn the occupation’s decision to cut off electricity to Gaza, after depriving it of food, medicine, and water,” Izzat al-Risheq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, said in a statement.

He said it was “a desperate attempt to pressure our people and their resistance through cheap and unacceptable blackmail tactics”.

• READ MORE: Israel cuts off Gaza electricity supply ahead of truce talks
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“Cutting off electricity, closing the crossings, stopping aid, relief and fuel, and starving our people, constitutes collective punishment and a full-fledged war crime,” al-Risheq said.

He accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of attempting “to impose a new roadmap” that prioritised his personal interests.

Israel has been widely condemned for violating the terms of the three-phased ceasefire agreement signed on January 19. It has been trying force “renegotiation” of the terms on Hamas by cutting off food supplies and now electricity.

Albanese slams ‘clean water’ cut off
Francesa Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, said Israel’s decision to cut off electricity to Gaza meant “no functioning desalination stations, ergo: no clean water”.

She added that countries that were yet to impose sanctions or an arms embargo on Israel were “AIDING AND ASSISTING Israel in the commission of one of the most preventable genocides of our history”.

According to Human Rights Watch, Israel had already intentionally cut off most ways that Palestinians in Gaza could access water, including by blocking pipelines to Gaza and destroying solar panels used to try to keep some water pumps and desalination and waste management plants running during power outages.

GENOCIDE ALERT!Israel cutting off electricity supplies to Gaza means, among others, no functioning desalination stations, ergo: no clean water.
STILL NO SANCTION/NO ARMS EMBARGO against Israel means, among others, AIDING AND ASSISTING Israel in the commission of one of the… https://t.co/x2cX4MuP0K

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) March 9, 2025

In a December report, the organisation noted that Palestinians in many areas of Gaza had access to 2 to 9 litres (0.5 to 2 gallons) of water for drinking and washing per day, per person, far below the 15-litre (3.3 gallons) per person threshold for survival.

“At this point in the war, I do not believe that Israel, Hamas and America are far apart. I want to see our people home. All of them, not just the Americans,” he added.

Boehler praises Qatar’s role
US President Donald Trump’s envoy on captives, Adam Boehler, said face-to-face talks with Hamas representatives — the first such discussions between the US and the organisation in 28 years — had been “very useful”.

In an interview with Israel’s Channel 13, the envoy dismissed a question by the channel’s reporter, who asked if the US had been “tricked” by Qatar into holding talks with Hamas.

“I don’t think it was a trick by the Qataris at all. It was something we asked for,” he said, reports Al Jazeera.

“They facilitated it. I think the Qataris have been great in this, quite frankly, in a number of different regards. They’ve done a very good job.

“Sometimes, it’s very very hard when you’re talking through intermediaries to understand what people actually want.”

Boehler added that his first question to Hamas was what the movement wanted.

“To me, they said they wanted it [the war] to end. They wanted to give all the prisoners back. They wanted prisoners on the other side. Eventually, we will rebuild Gaza,” he said.

Hamas also knew they would not be in charge of Gaza when the war ended, the US envoy said.

“At this point in the war, I do not believe that Israel, Hamas and America are far apart. I want to see our people home. All of them, not just the Americans,” he added.

Analysts and commentators have described how images of the hundreds of Palestinian detainees and prisoners have “dehumanised” them and revealed their “horrible” treatment.

Three Israeli captives were released by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad yesterday in exchange for 369 Palestinians held in Israeli jails as part of the ceasefire in Gaza.

The captives released were identified as US-Israeli Sagui Dekel-Chen, Russian-Israeli Alexandre Sasha Troufanov and Argentinian-Israeli Yair Horn.

• READ MORE: Israel frees Palestinian prisoners after 3 captives released in Gaza
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Of the Palestinians released, 333 had been arrested in Gaza and held without charge. They were sent back to the besieged enclave and greeted by remarkable emotional scenes of large crowds.

They disembarked from the buses that had taken them to the European Hospital in Khan Younis.

They made the Victory sign as they left the buses and were greeted by their loved ones.

Ten were released in the occupied West Bank — and half of them were taken to hospital after being treated badly in captivity, one in occupied East Jerusalem and 25 were either being deported to Gaza or Egypt.

The Israel Prison Service published images showing Palestinian prisoners who were being released were forced to wear shirts with the Star of David and slogans that read, “We do not forget, and we do not forgive”.

‘Stunning’ photos of ill-treatment
Dr Mohamad Elmasry, professor in the media studies programme at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, called the photographs “stunning”.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, he said this was “another method” under which Israel intended to “dehumanise” Palestinians.

Elmasry noted that 333 of the Palestinians being released today were arrested without any charge.

“These are people who by Israel’s own admission have not committed a crime,” he said.

“And this is the case with thousands of Palestinians who are in jail right now [under] administrative detention,” he said, adding it was well-documented that many of the Palestinian prisoners were “treated horribly” inside Israeli prisons.

Reporting from Amman, Jordan, Nour Odeh said that half of the Palestinian prisoners released to the West Bank were taken to hospital.

“We have seen that time and time again whether it is in the occupied West Bank or in Gaza,” she said.

“Palestinians released from Israeli captivity are in very bad shape. They speak of malnutrition, of going hungry; for the past 15 months of being deprived of even hygiene products.”

RAMALLAH: Palestinian prisoners have been released from Israeli jails.

At least 4 have been taken straight to the hospital due to poor health because of conditions in Israeli prisons.

A total of 369 Palestinian detainees are set to be released. pic.twitter.com/jNdFv3sERa

— Hamdah Salhut (@hamdahsalhut) February 15, 2025

‘Beatings, threatened with assassination’
They were only being allowed to shower every 10 days for a minute as per the command of the former Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

“They talk about beatings, mistreatment even in those last hours of their release . . .  they were told not to speak to the media, not to celebrate in any way their release,” she said.

“They were threatened with assassination even if they resume any activity. That’s why a lot of those who were released today in Ramallah apologised for not speaking to the media.

“They spoke openly about being monitored, about not being allowed to speak.

“Their health is clearly ailing because of those months of mistreatment.”

‘Bittersweet happiness’
In Ramallah, a Palestinian mother, Mariam Oweiss, spoken of her “bittersweet happiness” after the release of her sons from Israeli prison.

The two brothers had been sentenced to life terms. But one was released to the occupied West Bank while the other was being deported.

“I was hoping they would both be released home,” Oweiss said. But she added, “At least they will both be out of prison shackles.”

She said it would be easier for her as a mother if both had come home, but that it would be easier for the son being deported.

“Anywhere but prison,” she said.

By Jeremy Scahill and Sharif Abdel Kouddous of Dropsite News

Hamas officials submitted a two-page report to mediators yesterday listing a wide range of Israeli violations of the Gaza ceasefire since the agreement went into effect on January 19 — including the killing of civilians, repeated ground and air incursions, the beating and humiliation of Palestinian captives during their release and the deportation of some without their consent, and the denial of humanitarian aid.

Drop Site News obtained a copy of the report delivered to mediators from Qatar and Egypt.

“Hamas is committed to the ceasefire agreement if the occupation is committed to the agreement,” Hamas said in a statement.

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“We confirm that the occupation is the party that did not abide by its commitments, and it bears responsibility for any complications or delays.”

The move comes in response to accusations by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Hamas had violated the agreement, threatening a full resumption of the war — yet it was Israel’s nearly daily breaches of the deal that prompted Hamas to announce it would postpone the next release of Israeli captives.

On Monday, Abu Obeida, the spokesperson for the Al Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, announced the next planned release of three Israeli captives, scheduled for Saturday, would be “postponed indefinitely”.

Abu Obeida cited “delays in allowing displaced Palestinians to return to northern Gaza, targeting them with airstrikes and gunfire across various areas of the Strip, and failing to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid as agreed”.

Israel violating ceasefire agreement
Hamas issued a statement soon afterwards reiterating that Israel was violating the agreement by blocking aid, attacking civilians, and restricting movement in Gaza, and warning that the next release of captives would be postponed until it complied.

“By issuing this statement five full days ahead of the scheduled prisoner handover, Hamas aims to grant mediators sufficient time to pressure the occupation to fulfill its obligations,” the statement said.

Three Israeli officials and two mediators speaking anonymously to The New York Times confirmed that Israel had not fulfilled its obligations to send humanitarian aid into Gaza. This fact was mentioned in the 9th paragraph of the Times story.

In response, President Trump, on Monday told reporters that the ceasefire should be cancelled if Hamas did not release all the remaining captives it was holding in Gaza by midday Saturday, warning “all hell is going to break out”.

Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubled down on Trump’s comments.

“If Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon,” Netanyahu said in a video statement, “the ceasefire will end, and the IDF will return to intense fighting until Hamas is finally defeated.”

Netanyahu reportedly ordered the military to add more troops in and around Gaza to prepare for “every scenario” if the captives were not released.

It was not immediately clear if he was referring to the three Israelis originally scheduled for release Saturday, all remaining captives, or all living Israelis slated for release in Phase 1.

Document submitted to mediators
The two-page document submitted by Hamas to mediators yesterday divided the violations into five separate categories: Field Violations, Prisoners, Humanitarian Aid, Denial of Essential Supplies, and Political Violations.

Israel has repeatedly violated the ceasefire deal since it came into effect, targeting Palestinians in Gaza on an almost daily basis. The document outlines 269 “field violations” by the Israeli military, including the killing of 26 Palestinians and the wounding of 59 others.

The number of people killed appears to be a dramatic undercount compared to the official toll documented by the Ministry of Health in Gaza.

The Director-General of the Health Ministry, Dr Monir al-Barsh, announced separately yesterday that 92 Palestinians had been killed and 822 wounded in “direct targeting” by the Israeli military since January 19, when the ceasefire came into effect.

The report also lists repeated ground incursions into Gaza beyond the designated buffer zone, particularly in the Philadelphi corridor — the 14km strip of land that runs along the border of Egypt.

These incursions “were accompanied by gunfire and resulted in the deaths of citizens and the demolition of homes,” the report said.

It also accused Israeli authorities of subjecting Palestinian captives to beatings and humiliation during their release, forcibly deporting released captives to Gaza without their coordination or consent, preventing families of deported prisoners from leaving the West Bank to join them, and delaying prisoner releases by several hours.

The report also says that fewer than 25 fuel trucks per day have been allowed into Gaza, which is half of the allotted 50 fuel trucks per day, as outlined in the deal. The entry of commercial fuel was blocked entirely, the report says, again in violation of the agreement.

Only 53,000 tents allowed
Just over 53,000 tents were allowed into Gaza, the reports says, out of the 200,000 allotted and no mobile housing units out of the 60,000 agreed on.

Heavy machinery for the removal of massive amounts of debris and retrieval of bodies was similarly blocked, with only four machines allowed in.

Israel also blocked the entry of supplies to repair and operate the power plant and electrical grid, the report said.

No medical supplies, ambulances have been allowed in and no equipment for civil defense teams. Meanwhile banks were not allowed to receive cash to replenish a severe currency shortage.

The report ends on “Political Violations” criticising statements by the “Israeli Prime Minister and ministers openly calling for the expulsion of Gaza’s population, sending a clear message that the occupation does not wish to honour the agreement and aims to implement Trump’s plan to displace Gaza’s residents”.

It also criticises the “deliberate delay” in starting the negotiations on Phase 2 of the ceasefire and “the introduction of impossible conditions.”

Sultan Barakat, a professor at Qatar’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University, says the release of Palestinian prisoners is a “symbolic win” rather than a victory for the Palestinians, primarily showing the inhumane conditions they live under.

“Israel can capture people in the West Bank and Gaza because they all live in a confinement area under the control of Israel,” he told Al Jazeera.

Dr Barakat discussed the way Palestinians were “arbitrarily rounded up, taken to prison and treated badly” by Israel.

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A total of 183 Palestinian prisoners were released today from Israeli jails as part of the exchange for three Israeli hostages under the ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel.

They included 18 serving life sentences and 54 serving lengthy sentences, as well as 111 detained in Gaza since 7 October 2023.

Dozens of Palestinians released from Israeli jails showed signs of torture and starvation, said the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.

Barakat stressed that the release of prisoners also “shows the unity of the Palestinians in the face of occupation”.

“The prisoners are not all necessarily Hamas sympathisers — some were at odds with Hamas for a long time,” the academic said.

“But they are united in their refusal of occupation and standing up to Israel,” he added.

Celebration time. Some Palestinian prisoners have been released. A mother reunited with her daughter. A young mother reunited with her babies.

Still in prison are people who never received a fair trial, people that independent inquirers say are wrongly imprisoned. Still in prison kids who cursed soldiers who walked into their villages wielding guns.

Still imprisoned far too many Palestinians who threw stones against bullets. Still imprisoned thousands of Palestinian hostages.

• READ MORE: Israel kills 10 in West Bank raid as 120 bodies found under Gaza’s rubble
• Gaza and the Western media – complicit in genocide
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Many of us never knew how many hostages had been stolen, hauled into jails by Israel before 7 October 2023. We only heard the one-sided story of that day. The day when an offence force on a border was taken by surprise and when it panicked and blasted and bombed.

When that army guarding the occupation did more to lose lives than save lives.

Many never knew and perhaps never will know how many of the Palestinians who were kidnapped before and after that day had been beaten and tortured, including with the torture of rape.

We do know many have been murdered. We do know that some released from prison died soon after. We do not know how many more Palestinians will be taken hostage and imprisoned behind the prison no reporter is allowed to photograph.

Israelis boast over prison crime
The only clue to what happens inside is that Israelis have boasted this crime on national television. The clue is that Israeli soldiers have been tried for raping their own colleagues.

Make no mistake, this is a mean misogynist mercantile army. No sensible rational caring person would wish to serve in it.

No mother on any side of this conflict should lose her child. No father should bury his daughter or son. No grandparent should grieve over the loss of a life that should outlive them.

The crimes need to be exposed. All of them. Our media filters the truth. It does not provide a fair or full story. If you want that switch for pity’s sake go to Al Jazeera English.

When Radio New Zealand reports that people who fled are returning to Gaza it should report the full truth and not redact any part of the statement.

The Palestinian people were forced to flee their homes in Gaza. Those who were never responsible for any crime were bombed out of their homes, they fled as their families were murdered, burned to death, shot by snipers. They fled while soldiers mocked their dead children.

They return home to ashes. If we want peace we must face the truths that create conflict. We are all connected in peace and war and peace.

Peace is the strongest greeting. It sears the heart and soars the soul.

It can only be achieved when we recognise and stop the anguish that causes oppression.

Saige England is a freelance journalist and author living in the Aotearoa New Zealand city of Ōtautahi.

An almost three-hour delay for the start of the temporary ceasefire — due to “technical difficulties”, said the resistance movement Hamas — hardly daunted thousands of euphoric Palestinians who took to the streets of Gaza on Sunday to celebrate and try to move back to bombed-out homes in spite of the dangers.

Hamas finally released three names of women hostages due to be set free today and the truce began, reports Al Jazeera.

This in turn will trigger freedom for 95 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom had been jailed without charges or being tried in Israeli lawcourts, at the start of the 42-day first stage of the three-phase ceasefire deal.

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Israel currently detains 10,400 Palestinian prisoners in jails, according to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.

This figure does not include those detained from Gaza during the last 15 months of conflict. Hamas and allied resistance groups are reported to be holding 94 hostages captured on 7 October 2023, with 34 of those believed to be dead.

At least 19 people were killed on Sunday and 36 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza during the truce delay according to Gazan Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal

One person was killed in Rafah, six people were killed in Khan Younis, nine were killed in Gaza City and three in the north, he said in a statement.

Ceasefire start announced
The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office announced the ceasefire with Hamas would start at 11:15am local time (09:15 GMT) after the delay by Hamas in naming the three Israeli women captives to be freed as Romi Gonen, 24, Doron Steinbrecher, 31, and Emily Damari, 28.

One was reported to be of dual Romanian nationality and another of British nationality.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said it had 4000 truckloads of humanitarian aid ready to enter the Gaza Strip — “half of them carry food and water”, announced UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini in an X post.

UNRWA has 4,000 truckloads of aid ready to enter #Gaza — half of them carry food and flour.

Attacks on aid convoys in the Gaza Strip could decline as humanitarian relief comes in following a #ceasefire, says @‌UNLazzarini.https://t.co/yRt1NxWuXS

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) January 19, 2025

Two of the Palestinian reporters covering the truce from inside Gaza for Al Jazeera spoke of the joy and celebrations in spite of the uncertainty over the delayed truce start.

“Palestinians are taking a deep breath from all the atrocities they have been going through for the past 470 days. And today is a day of celebration,” said Hind Khoudary, reporting from Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

“Thousands of Palestinians are getting ready to go to the areas that they were not supposed to go, like the eastern parts, Jabalia, the areas that have been witnessing an Israeli ground invasion — and also Rafah.

‘Their houses are not even there’
“We also saw a lot of people putting their luggage to start going back, but many know that their houses are not even there.

“Most of their houses are not standing any more, but most of the people said that they’re going to put their tents on top of the rubble in their neighbourhoods.

Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Deir el-Balah, Gaza, said that despite the ceasefire delay, people had been celebrating.

“People here, as soon as the clock hit 8:30am, burst out into celebration and festivities. We heard shotguns a few times as well as people using fireworks.

“They are hoping that the coming hours are going to show them more promises and that the list of captives has been resolved and they can go on to start piecing their lives together in a more stable and safer environment.”

In Auckland on Saturday, about 200 demonstrators gathered in the heart of New Zealand’s biggest city to welcome the Gaza ceasefire, but warned they would continue to protest until justice is served with an independent and free Palestinan state.

Jubilant scenes of dancing and Palestinian folk music rang out across Te Komititanga square amid calls for the Israeli ambassador to be expelled from New Zealand and for the government to halt holiday worker visas for “Zionist terrorist” soldiers or reservists.