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AMY GOODMAN: The Gaza ceasefire deal is in effect. Phase one of the U.S.-backed 20-point plan is underway. Hamas has released all 20 remaining living hostages who had been held in Gaza for the past two years. Red Cross vehicles carried the captives from Gaza to Israel. Hamas is also in the process of handing over the bodies of 28 Israeli captives who have been confirmed dead.
In exchange, Israel is releasing nearly 2,000 Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons, many of whom have been held without charge. Sources told Al Jazeera Israeli forces have fired smoke bombs at journalists around Ofer Prison, where Palestinians were freed. Israel has warned Palestinians in the occupied West Bank against celebrating their release.
This all comes as part of the first phase of a U.S.-backed 20-point plan. Today, President Trump joined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in addressing the Israeli Knesset. First, Prime Minister Netanyahu.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [I’ve never seen anyone] move the world so quickly, so decisively, so resolutely, as our friend President Donald J. Trump. … With our military pressure and President Trump’s global leadership, we achieved this historic moment. It’s a moment of indescribable joy.
AMY GOODMAN: As President Trump addressed the Israeli Knesset, a group of leftist Israeli lawmakers briefly interrupted him by waving a sign calling him to “Recognize Palestine.”
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Everybody loves Steve, and they respect him, and they somehow can relate to him. I’ve known him for many years, and I’ve seen it over — over and over again.
KNESSET CHAIR: [speaking in Hebrew]
KNESSET MEMBERS: Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That was very efficient.
AMY GOODMAN: At one point, President Trump claimed the Gaza ceasefire will mark the beginning of a golden age for Israel and the Middle East.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I can tell you, we have weapons that nobody has ever dreamt of. I only hope we never have to use them. I rebuilt the military. I was proud to do it. But some of the things, I hated to do. I hated certain of the weapons, because the level of power is so enormous. It’s so dangerous, so bad. But we have to do what we have to do. We make the best weapons in the world, and we’ve got a lot of them. And we’ve given a lot to Israel, frankly. And —
AMY GOODMAN: Trump heads next to Egypt, where he’s co-chairing a summit in Sharm el-Sheikh with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Leaders from at least 27 countries are set to attend, but Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said today he declined Trump’s invitation, citing the Jewish holidays.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, Drop Site News reports, after Trump’s announcement of the Gaza deal Thursday, the Israeli military, quote, “launched an arson spree, setting fire to civilian infrastructure, including the destruction of an essential sanitation plant in Gaza City,” unquote.
For more, we begin with Ahmed Abu Artema, Palestinian writer and human rights activist. We had him on Democracy Now! two years ago, shortly after Israel killed his eldest son Abdullah and five other relatives in Gaza. Ahmed and several other family members were injured in that attack. He was one of the organizers of the nonviolent 2018 Great March of Return. He was recently able to leave Gaza and is joining us now from Amsterdam.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Ahmed. It’s great to have you here. As we broadcast, Reuters is showing Khan Younis live, buses arriving with prisoners. They already arrived in the West Bank. And, of course, just a few hours before this, Hamas released the 20 live hostages. Can you respond to everything that has taken place so far?
AHMED ABU ARTEMA: Thank you, Amy, for having me. It’s my honor to be with you.
Yes, today is an important day in Gaza and in Palestine, in general. We finally saw the exchange of prisoners, and the people in Gaza hope this can lead to ending the horrible genocide which continued for two years. Finally, about 2,000 of the Palestinian prisoners returned back to their home, to their families.
And there are still in the Israeli prisons more than 9,000 Palestinian prisoners. This is important to mention, as we see how Trump and the Israeli government and the pro-Israel media focus on the 20 hostages, 20 Israeli hostages, and their humanity and all the details, but no one talk about the tragedy of the Palestinian prisoners. There are about 11,000 Palestinian prisoners. About 3,000-and-half of them are in the Israeli prisons with no trial, with no charge. They are subjugated to inhumane conditions, medical neglect, very horrible situation, but no one talk about them.
And this is the essence of the problem, the essence of the problem dehumanizing us, dehumanizing the Palestinians. They always talk about the issue of the Israeli hostages, and they have to return to their home. But what about the Palestinians? What about 2 million of the people in Gaza live a catastrophe, complete catastrophic situation? The people in Gaza, including me, lost everything. We lost our beloved ones. We lost our houses. We lost everything. So, it sounds like there are people deserve life — Israelis — and there are people don’t deserve life, in the perspective of Trump and the perspective of this colonial Israeli government.
So, yes, the people in Gaza need any opportunity to stop the daily massacres, which continues for two years. In the same time, we cannot say we are happy, we are happy, because we lost everything. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. And Israel itself, until now, doesn’t talk about ending the genocide. Just the Israeli war minister wrote a tweet that they will return to destroy the tunnels after the hostages return back to their homes.
So, the situation in Gaza, the people finally feel very little rest that they can sleep without a feeling that their tents, their places may be targeted anytime. But in the same time, the catastrophe in Gaza is beyond words, indescribable. So, we cannot say today, as Trump said, that the time of peace will start. This is completely wrong. We cannot talk about peace. Which peace they talk about when the injustice is still continuing, when the violations against the Palestinians, the dehumanization, the denial of their very basic rights are still? I think any talk about peace when it’s not be based on the justice and in ending — on ending the injustice, it will not be last and stable for long time.
AMY GOODMAN: I just wanted to point out, 20 Israeli hostages, all of them, have been released. And now Hamas, over the next days, apparently, is going to release the remains of hostages who have died. I’m just looking at the report back last year from the — from a Palestinian advocacy group, that says 198 Palestinians who were killed in 2024, Israel is continuing to hold their bodies. Was there any discussion of the release of the dead Palestinians, as there was of the dead Israelis?
AHMED ABU ARTEMA: Exactly. This is the problem, the problem no one talk about, that, actually, we have thousands and tens of thousands, and maybe hundreds of thousands, of tragic stories as Palestinians. No one talk about them. No one care about them, because they only care about the 20 live Israeli hostages or other dozens of the dead Israelis have. So, this is the double standards. This means that they don’t look to us as Palestinians, that we have rights, we have our humanity.
This is one story, the story of the dead Palestinians that Israel is keeping them. What about also the thousands of the prisoners, about 400 children inside the Israeli — inside the Israeli prisons? Imagine that Israel made big propaganda around the world about the monsters, of the Palestinian monsters, who took the children. What about the 400 children are now in the Israeli prisons? What about the 2 million — what about the 20,000 Palestinian children were murdered in Gaza, including my son Abdullah? What about the 2 million people in Gaza? They are deprived from everything. Their houses were completely destroyed. No one in Gaza didn’t affect severely in this Israeli genocide.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Ahmed, we don’t have much time, but I wanted to ask: Do you hold out any hope for this summit? They’re calling it a peace summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, which President Trump is going to co-chair with the Egyptian president, with dozens of world leaders there. What do you want to see happen there?
AHMED ABU ARTEMA: Yes, the first or the important sign already came that Netanyahu will go there. This means this person, who is wanted to the International Criminal Court, they will bring them there to whitewash his image after committing horrible, maybe the most horrible, genocide in the last decades. So, what hope we can expect of this summit, which try to whitewash the image of the criminals?
And again, the problem that simply — it’s very simple. The Palestinians have their rights, their simple rights, the rights of freedom, the right of ending this occupation, to live their life with dignity. But they try to go away from this issue, this real problem. And they talk — they try to portray the problem as there is armed militias in Gaza, and we defeated them, then let us now make the peace.
AMY GOODMAN: Have you heard —
AHMED ABU ARTEMA: They are lying.
AMY GOODMAN: Have you ever heard recently if Dr. Abu Safiya — it doesn’t look like — the head of Kamal Adwan, which is mainly a pediatric hospital, who was taken by the Israelis, his son killed, has been released? And we know that Marwan Barghouti is also continuing to be held after decades. Israel rejected Hamas’s request for him to be released. But do you know about the doctor?
AHMED ABU ARTEMA: I read at morning, but I’m not sure, so I cannot say if he will be released or not. But in general, this is the Israeli policy. The Israeli policy always to reject and to try to kill the — any kind of Palestinian happiness.
AMY GOODMAN: Ahmed —
AHMED ABU ARTEMA: The Israel — yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Ahmed, we see that Haaretz is reporting Dr. Abu Safiya might be released. Quote, “The Israeli government approved five extra names overnight into Monday to be added to the list of Gazan prisoners who are expected to be released.”
But as we have to go, I just want to ask you quickly: Do you hold out hope with, for example, right now, apparently, as President Trump was addressing the Knesset, in Egypt, Prime Minister Starmer and Macron were meeting with Mahmoud Abbas in Sharm el-Sheikh? And I wanted to wrap that together with — you’re in Amsterdam now. I mean, you’ve been in Gaza but are now in Amsterdam. And, I mean, we have seen in Amsterdam in — the largest antiwar, pro-Palestine protest in Europe, where some quarter of a million people gathered in the city before marching through the city center. The resistance that you’re seeing around the world and the recognition of Palestine as a state?
AHMED ABU ARTEMA: Yes, I think this is the real hope, the real hope not relating to what’s happening in that summit, which try to whitewash the image of Netanyahu and the Israeli war criminals. The real hope comes from this world uprise against this genocide. So, I think, and I believe, that the Palestinians, yes, now they are politically, and in all the sides, they are weak. But when we see this world support and world solidarity, as we saw here in Amsterdam, in Italy, in Spain, in the United States, in the United Kingdom, everywhere, this large, large movement that support the Palestinian rights and condemn the Israeli genocide, this gives us kind of hope, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Ahmed Abu Artema, I want to thank you so much for being with us, Palestinian —
AHMED ABU ARTEMA: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: — writer, human rights activist, just recently left Gaza, lost his son there, as well as other relatives, is now in Amsterdam.
This is Democracy Now! We go to break, then come back to go to Haifa to speak with the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé. His new book, Israel on the Brink. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Do You Believe in Rapture?” by Thurston Moore.
