DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — The first three hostages released from Gaza arrived in Israel on Sunday for tearful reunions with families, hours after the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took hold following 15 months of war. Early Monday, Israel freed 90 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

Footage showed 28-year-old Emily Damari, 24-year-old Romi Gonen and 31-year-old Doron Steinbrecher in a tense handover to the Red Cross on a Gaza City street. They were surrounded by a crowd of thousands, accompanied by masked, armed men wearing green Hamas headbands.

The women were taken to Israeli forces and then into Israel, where their mothers were waiting.

The three women were in stable condition, Sheba Medical Center said, and authorities released footage of them reuniting with their families, hugging fiercely and sobbing. “You’re here! I can really touch you!” a relative cried.

Israel’s military also released images showing Damari raising a bandaged hand in triumph. It said she lost two fingers in the attack that sparked the war.

In Tel Aviv, thousands of people who gathered to watch the news on large screens erupted in applause. For months, many had gathered in the square weekly to demand a ceasefire deal.

“An entire nation embraces you,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Gonen was abducted from the Nova music festival, while the others were kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza. Damari is an Israeli-British dual citizen, and Steinbrecher has Israeli and Romanian citizenship.

The ceasefire ushers in an initial six weeks of calm and raises hopes for the release of nearly 100 remaining hostages and an end to the devastating war. A last-minute delay by Hamas put off the truce’s start by nearly three hours, but the spokesman for Hamas’ military wing later said it is committed to the ceasefire.

Just outside Ramallah in the West Bank, large white buses carrying the Palestinian detainees exited the gates of Israel’s Ofer prison as celebratory fireworks erupted overhead. Crowds of Palestinians thronged the buses, chanting and cheering.

The most prominent of the detainees freed is Khalida Jarrar, 62, a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a secular leftist faction that was involved in hijackings and other attacks against Israel in the 1970s.

Since her arrest in December 2023, Jarrar has been held under indefinitely renewable six-month administrative detention orders, a practice denounced by human rights groups as a violation of international law. The truce, which started at 11:15 a.m. local time, is the first step toward ending the conflict and returning hostages abducted in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

In the interim between the planned ceasefire time and when it took hold, Israeli fire killed at least 26 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It did not say whether they were civilians or fighters. The military has warned people to stay away from Israeli forces as they retreat to a buffer zone inside Gaza.

Israel’s hard-line national security minister, meanwhile, said his Jewish Power faction was quitting the government in protest over the ceasefire. Itamar Ben-Gvir’s departure weakens Netanyahu’s coalition but will not affect the truce.

In a separate development, Israel announced it had recovered the body of Oron Shaul, a soldier killed in the 2014 Israel-Hamas war, in a special operation in Gaza. The bodies of Shaul and another soldier, Hadar Goldin, had remained after the 2014 war.

The ceasefire deal was announced last week after a year of mediation by the United States, Qatar and Egypt. The outgoing Biden administration and President-elect Donald Trump’s team had both pressed for an agreement to be reached before the inauguration Monday.

Netanyahu warned Saturday that he has Trump’s backing to continue fighting if necessary.

The 42-day first phase of the ceasefire should see 33 hostages gradually returned and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees released. The next release of hostages is expected Saturday.

There also should be a surge of humanitarian aid, with hundreds of trucks entering Gaza daily, far more than Israel allowed before. The U.N. World Food Program said trucks started entering through two crossings. Biden’s top Middle East adviser, Brett McGurk, told CBS that 800 trucks were expected to flow in Sunday.

This is just the second ceasefire in the war, longer and more consequential than a weeklong pause in November 2023, with the potential to end the fighting for good.

Negotiations on the ceasefire’s far more difficult second phase should begin in just over two weeks. Major questions remain, including whether the war will resume after the first phase.

Across Gaza, there was relief and grief. The fighting has killed tens of thousands of people, destroyed large areas and displaced most of the population.

“This ceasefire was a joy mixed with pain because my son was martyred in this war,” said Rami Nofal, a displaced man from Gaza City.

In the southern city of Rafah, residents returned to find massive destruction. Some found human remains in the rubble.

“It’s like you see a Hollywood horror movie,” resident Mohamed Abu Taha said as he inspected the ruins of his family’s home.