President Donald Trump arrived in Israel Monday to celebrate the US-brokered ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, an agreement that he declared had effectively ended the war and opened the door to building a durable peace in the Middle East.

As he disembarked from Air Force One, a convoy of vehicles carried into Israel the first hostages released by Hamas as part of the deal.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greeted Trump on the tarmac as a military band played. In Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, the site of continuous demonstrations during two years of war, the crowd cheered for Trump.

The moment remains fragile, with Israel and Hamas still in the early stages of implementing the first phase of the plan intended to end the conflict that

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