A long-delayed ceasefire in the Gaza war began taking hold as Hamas released three hostages in exchange for 90 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

The first halt in the war since November 2023 appeared to go as planned, following months of negotiations by the Biden administration, along with Qatar and Egypt, then a recent push by President-elect Donald Trump for a deal before his inauguration on Monday. The six-week truce aims for the release of 33 Israeli hostages and hundreds of Palestinians in prison in Israel — 30 for each hostage freed.

The three Israeli women — Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari, who’s also a British national — were united with their mothers on Sunday at an initial reception facility near the Gaza border. Air Force helicopters later flew them to a hospital where they were reunited with the rest of their families and received medical treatment, the IDF said in a statement.

The Palestinian prisoners were released from buses early Monday morning. They included 78 residents of the West Bank, who were released at the Beitunia checkpoint near Ofer Prison. Representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross escorted the prisoners on the buses.

Among the released Israelis, Steinbrecher, 31, and Damari, 28, were kidnapped from Kfar Aza, and Gonen, 24, was abducted at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023.

“The Israeli government embraces the three returnees. Their families were informed by the appointed officials that they joined our (IDF) forces,” according to a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. “The Israeli government is committed to the return of all abductees and missing persons.”

Among the Palestinian prisoners on the list to be released were 69 women and 21 men, some of whom are minors.

The transfer came hours after the start of the deal. Sunday’s swap was the first to take place as part of the agreement.

U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters on Sunday the cease-fire deal he helped broker was “one of the toughest negotiations” in his career, and said he had heard the released captives were in good condition.

“Today the guns in Gaza have gone silent,” Biden said. “Today we’re seeing hostages being released — three Israeli women held against their will in the dark tunnels for 470 days.”

Biden said he anticipated several hundred trucks of aid would enter the Gaza Strip on Sunday, and said the ultimate success of the deal would “require persistence and continuing support for our friends in the region, and the belief in diplomacy backed by deterrence” by the incoming administration.

Trump, whose Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff joined negotiations in their concluding days, celebrated the release in a social media post a day ahead of his inauguration.

“Hostages starting to come out today! Three wonderful young women will be first,” Trump wrote.

On Sunday, thousands of ordinary Israelis gathered outside the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in what has become known as Hostages Square to watch and wait as the three women were returned.

Avichai Brodutch, whose wife and three children were abducted to Gaza and released after 51 days more than a year ago, said that he has only an inkling of what the families expecting their daughters home after 15 months have endured.

Two of the women coming back on Sunday are from Brodutch’s collective community, Kfar Aza, as are three men due to be returned later in the process.

Brodutch said when he got the call in November of 2023 that his family was due out later that day, he rushed to Kfar Aza, which was still in ruins from the Hamas attack the previous month, and grabbed special objects — blankets, dolls, his wife’s handbag — to greet them when they met.

At the hospital to which they were taken, he said, “I waited when the elevators opened, I saw my children coming out the doors, it was unimaginable. I got my family reborn. They were thin and full of lice but speaking and breathing. Hostages live with wounds in their souls for their whole lives. But we have lived a miracle and I thank God for it every day.”

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(With assistance from Ethan Bronner, Fadwa Hodali, Lauren Dezenski and Justin Sink.)

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