Nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners were released from Israeli detention on Monday under the first phase of a Gaza ceasefire agreement.

The Hamas-run Prisoners’ Media Office said buses carrying freed prisoners from Ofer Prison, west of Ramallah, arrived in the town of Beitunia in the occupied West Bank.

The official news agency Wafa confirmed that 96 prisoners serving high jail terms arrived in the town aboard two buses of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The Prisoners’ Media Office also said that 154 freed prisoners were deported to Egypt under the ceasefire deal.

It said buses carrying more than 1,700 prisoners released from the Negev Prison in southern Israel also arrived in the Gaza Strip.

“Under the current deal, 250 prisoners serving life sentences and long prison terms, as well as 1,718 prisoners arrested from Gaza after Oct. 7, 2023, were released,” the office said in a statement.

Israel’s Prison Service, for its part, confirmed that 1,968 Palestinian prisoners had been released from prisons under the Gaza ceasefire deal.

According to an Anadolu reporter, the first group of freed detainees arrived at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis in southern Gaza for medical examinations.

Thousands of Palestinians gathered to welcome the freed prisoners, with hundreds assembled in the hospital courtyards, while others waited outside for their arrival.

The releases came after Hamas handed over 20 living Israeli hostages under the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement.

The first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement took effect on Friday under US President Donald Trump’s plan to end a two-year Israeli war on the enclave.

Since October 2023, Israeli attacks have killed more than 67,800 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children, leaving the enclave largely uninhabitable.