Monday Briefing: A Gaza Cease-Fire Begins

The start of a truce in Gaza

Several Israeli hostages were released from captivity in Gaza yesterday and were reunited with their families, the Israeli military said, as a 42-day cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas went into effect. Follow our live coverage.

The first hostages released were three women: Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher. Israel was expected to release 90 Palestinian prisoners, all women or minors, in exchange for the hostages. The truce prompted celebrations in Gaza, relief for families of Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners, and hope for an end to a devastating 15-month war.

Israeli officers said their forces had begun to withdraw from parts of Gaza. Hamas sought to reassert control, with masked gunmen taking to the streets in several cities.

The start of the initial six-week phase yesterday was delayed by almost three hours, with Israel saying it had not formally received the names of the first three hostages to be released. During the delay, the Israeli military continued striking targets in Gaza.

Hostages and prisoners: Hamas is expected to stagger the release of 33 hostages — of the roughly 100 it still holds — during the first phase of the cease-fire; a “vast majority” of the 33 are still alive, an Israeli military spokesman said. In exchange, Israel is expected to begin releasing more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

What’s next: Israel and Hamas reached the cease-fire agreement in part by putting off their greatest disputes until a nebulous “second phase” that neither side is sure it will reach. During the first phase, 600 trucks will be allowed to bring aid to Gazans daily. Israel will still occupy parts of Gaza and hold high-profile prisoners.

TikTok briefly disappeared from U.S. phones

TikTok began to reappear yesterday, mere hours after the social media platform had been removed from major app stores and had gone dark for U.S. users. The shift came after President-elect Donald Trump said yesterday on his platform Truth Social that he would issue an executive order to stall a federal ban.

A unanimous Supreme Court decision on Friday upheld a law that called for the app’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app by Sunday or face a ban over national security concerns around its Chinese ties.

In his post on Sunday, Trump floated the idea that he “would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture,” but did not provide further details.

Background: Trump’s promise of an executive order caps a whirlwind of decisions concerning TikTok. He tried to orchestrate a sale of the app to American companies in 2020, and later tried to ban TikTok before reversing course last March. He then enjoyed success on the platform during the election.

Impact: If Trump issued an executive order, it would constitute an attempt to temporarily neuter a law that passed with broad bipartisan support in Congress, and his action could face a legal challenge. TikTok has said in legal filings that even a temporary disappearance could kneecap it.

The Trump transition was already underway

Donald Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery yesterday for the first time since last summer, one of a series of stops on the eve of his presidential inauguration. He also held a rally at an indoor arena, his first such event in Washington since Jan. 6, 2021, the day of the Capitol riot. Read our coverage here.

Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist and an early supporter of Trump, hosted a party at his home in Washington on Saturday, with guests that included Vice President-elect JD Vance, Mark Zuckerberg and several other tech titans, including Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI. The powerful attendees illustrated Silicon Valley’s trend toward the right.

Joe Biden, on his final day as president, pardoned five activists and public servants. He offered a posthumous grant of clemency to the civil rights leader Marcus Garvey, who mobilized the Black nationalist movement and was convicted of mail fraud in 1923.

In the weeks leading up to the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, migrants headed north through Mexico on foot as part of small caravans, hoping to somehow reach the U.S. border before Jan. 20 in anticipation of a crackdown on illegal immigrants.

The journey can be treacherous — the weather oscillates between extremes, and cartels in the region have been known to kidnap and kill travelers. A Times photographer followed along on some of their treks. Read about them here.

Lives lived: Zilia Sánchez was a Cuban-born minimalist painter who was in her 80s when she began to find serious acclaim outside the Caribbean. She is dead at 98.

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The modern sex scene

The contenders for this year’s Oscar nominations are full of sex. “Anora” revolves around a sex worker, “Babygirl” focuses on a woman exploring her desires and “Nosferatu” centers on lust.

But their steamy scenes don’t always showcase the eroticism of cinema past, and come with an asterisk: The directors are using the moments to explore complex power dynamics between characters. Here are fives scenes that do this particularly well.

Lynchian visuals: The director David Lynch, who died last week, developed such a distinct style that “Lynchian” became a go-to term for onscreen surrealism. Watch five scenes that define his vision.