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Hello, it's good to have your company here on Newsout from the BBC World Service coming to you from London with me, Sean Lay.

Tim Franks has spent the day in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is quiet tonight. Israel is quiet tonight.

It's the start of an important Jewish festival and so the place has shut down, at least publicly.

But it also feels as if people have withdrawn indoors after an exhausting day, a day of exhilaration, a day of exhilaration, of breathing out of a sense of release

after two years when the teeth have been clenched shut. Because early today, the last 20 living

hostages held in captivity in Gaza after the cataclysm of October 7, 2023, those 20 were released by Hamas as part of the

U.S. Brokid peace deal. Families, sundered for more than 700 days, were reunited to the sounds of

unchecked emotion.

Shema Israel, Adonai, Lorde, Lorde, Lorde, Adonai, Echadhae, Bahraucata, Adonai Lerhenu, and given us in

that time.

That's Avi Ohana reciting, screaming, perhaps the central declaration of faith in Judaism,

the Shemar, as he threw his arms around his son, Yosef Chaim, one of the many

young people kidnapped from the massacre at the Nova Music Festival two years ago. Those screams

of catharsis and joy were echoed at other reunions, but it's also been for a minority of

Israelis a day of particularly mixed emotions because either

they're still waiting for the bodies of their dead relatives to be returned from Gaza.

So far, we think only a minority of the 28 believed to be in Gaza have been returned,

or because it's a reminder that their children never made it out alive.

Among them is Rachel Goldberg-Pollin,

the mother of 23-year-old Hirsch, taken hostage on October the 7th, murdered by his captors

11 months later. I spoke to her earlier today. Today is truly a day of relief and joy, gratitude.

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