Mere weeks ago the families of many Israeli hostages were losing all hope of ever seeing their loved ones again.

Two full years on from the horror of the October 7 attacks, with no way of knowing whether those taken to Gaza on that dark day were alive or dead and with Israel's Defence Force ramping up yet another offensive in the embattled Palestinian territory, many feared the worst.

A brief pause in the fighting and the release of 110 hostages in November 2023 was a distant memory and despite United States President Donald Trump having vowed there would be "hell to pay" if Hamas did not release its captives by the time he returned to office in January 2025, it appeared negotiations over an end to the war were all but dead in the water.

And then the hostages came home.

In what may be

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