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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Daniel Boffey in Tel Aviv

‘I’m shaking all over’: hugs, tears and relief in Israel as Gaza hostages return

People wave Israeli flags and spray foam in celebration after the arrival of freed hostages.
People wave Israeli flags and spray foam in celebration after the arrival of freed hostages. Photograph: Francisco Seco/AP

The estimated 65,000 people in “hostages square” in Tel Aviv heard it before they saw it. Like so many sunflowers, their faces turned up to search the clear blue morning sky for the source of the sound. Then it swept into view from the west, from the direction of Gaza.

A helicopter, military brown, was on the way to Ichilov hospital a few hundred metres away. But it diverted. It circled around the crowd giving each person below a view, and then tilted to its right, in an apparent salute to the cheering, waving, smiling faces below.

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