First 3 hostages released in Gaza ceasefire deal. Here is what we know.

The first three hostages were released to the Red Cross after 15 months in Hamas captivity, as part of a ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas that came into effect earlier Sunday.

The three women — identified by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum as 24-year-old Romin Gonen, 31-year-old Doron Steinbrecher and 28-year-old Emily Damari — were released by Hamas militants to the Red Cross around 10:30 a.m. EST, 5:30 p.m. local time. They had been held since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.

The Red Cross handed them over to the Israel Defense Force in Israel to receive initial wellness checks at special reception centers near the border with Gaza, an IDF senior official said.

After those checks, they were to be transferred by either helicopter or ground vehicle to hospitals inside Israel, where areas had been prepared to welcome them and treat any medical needs they might have.

They were expected to reunite with their families once at the hospital, the IDF senior official said.

Some 250 people were kidnapped during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered 15 months of war. Around 100 hostages still remain in Gaza, after the rest were released or their bodies recovered.

Hours before the ceasefire Sunday, which many hope is the first step to end the war, Israel announced that it had retrieved the body of Oron Shaul, a soldier who was killed in the 2014 Israel-Hamas war and whose remains have been held by the militants since then.

Here is what we know about them:

Romi Gonen, 24

Gonen was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. That morning, Gonen’s mother, Merav, and her eldest daughter spent nearly five hours speaking to Gonen as militants marauded through the festival grounds. Gonen told her family that roads clogged with abandoned cars made escape impossible and that she would seek shelter in some bushes.

Then she said words that continue to echo in her mother’s head every day. “Mommy I was shot, the car was shot, everybody was shot. … I am wounded and bleeding. Mommy, I think I’m going to die,” she recounted Romi saying, in a press conference a few weeks after the abduction.

Over the past 15 months, Merav has been one of the most outspoken voices advocating for the return of the hostages, appearing nearly daily on Israeli news programs and traveling abroad on missions.

“We are doing everything we can so the world will not forget,” Merav told The Associated Press on the six-month anniversary of Hamas’ attack. “Every day we wake up and take a big breath, deep breath, and continue walking, continue doing the things that will bring her back.”

Emily Damari, 28

Damari is a British-Israeli citizen kidnapped from her apartment on Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a communal farming village hit hard by Hamas’ assault. She lived in a small apartment in a neighborhood for young adults. Militants broke through the border fence of the kibbutz and ransacked the neighborhood.

Kibbutz Kfar Aza said that Damari was often the “glue that held her close-knit friend group together” and she was always organizing gatherings of friends around the best barbecue corner in the entire kibbutz.

“All Emily’s mum Mandy wants to do is hug Emily. But she won’t believe it until she sees it,” Emily Cohen, representing the Damari family, told CBS News partner BBC before her release.

Doron Steinbrecher, 31

Steinbrecher is a veterinary nurse who loves animals, and a neighbor to Damari in Kibbutz Kfar Aza.

At 10:20 on Oct. 7, 2023, Steinbrecher called her mother. “Mom, I’m scared. I’m hiding under the bed and I hear them trying to enter my apartment,” her brother, Dor, recalled, according to the Associated Press.

Steinbrecher was featured in a video released by Hamas on Jan. 26, 2024, along with two other female Israeli soldiers.

How will the other hostages be released

Gonen, Steinbrecher and Damari are the first three hostages to be released under the newly implemented ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas, which will be carried out in phases.

The first phase of the ceasefire calls for Hamas to release 33 hostages over six weeks. They include women, children and hostages over 50 years old, a draft viewed by CBS News said.

On the first day of the deal, three hostages were to be released by Hamas. On the seventh day, four hostages were to be released. After that, Hamas would release three hostages taken from Israel every seven days, starting with the living and then moving on to return the bodies of those who have died.

Over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israel would also be released in the first phase of the deal. Israel was expected to release 90 prisoners in exchange for the first three hostages’ freedom.

“These are critical and emotional hours for the families and for all of Israel,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement. “While we rejoice for each hostage who returns home, we remain deeply concerned for our loved ones who might be left behind. Now, more than ever, we need the public to stand with us until the last hostage returns. We will not leave anyone behind. Only through our united strength can we ensure everyone returns – the living for rehabilitation and the deceased for proper burial.”

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