A daughter who loves dancing and whose father describes her as “sunshine.” A veterinary nurse who’s cared for animals from a young age. The friend who is “always there” for others.

Romi Gonen, 24; Doron Steinbrecher, 31; and Emily Damari, 28, were the first three Israel hostages, all women, released by the militant group Hamas on Sunday as part of a long-awaited Gaza ceasefire deal.

They were reunited with their families for the first time in 471 days − since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and abducting 251 more back to the tiny coastal territory Hamas controls.

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About 90 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel were also freed Sunday as part of a hostage and prisoner exchange, due to last for weeks, between Israel and Hamas. The ceasefire has raised hopes the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, where almost 47,000 Palestinians have been killed and the enclave has been reduced to ruins, could be brought to an end.

The three Israeli hostages were escorted out of Gaza by the International Committee of the Red Cross. After crossing into Israel, they were met by members of Israel’s military, doctors, psychologists and mental health specialists before being flown by helicopter to hospitals in Tel Aviv. The ICRC said they were in good health.

Previous reporting by USA TODAY established that “many” of the Israeli female hostages who were released in an earlier Israel-Hamas truce, in November 2023, were sexually assaulted while held in Gaza.

No Americans held by Hamas were released.

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Gonen was kidnapped after being ambushed at the Nova music festival in southern Israel.

“They shot me, Mom and I’m bleeding,” she told her mother Meirav, by phone, as the assault unfolded. She heard her daughter screaming as she tried to flee the area by car only to get stuck in a traffic jam.

“Everyone in the car is bleeding,” she said, according to her family.

In interviews, Gonen’s father Eitan has said his daughter “is sunshine” who loves nothing more than to dance.

“She brings light and heat to every place she enters. She will conquer everyone’s heart and she will make sure that everyone around her will be very happy and with high energy.”

Steinbrecher, the veterinary nurse, usually goes for early Saturday morning runs around Kibbutz Kfar Aza, her home in a community about a mile from Gaza, according to a family group representing the hostages.

On Oct 7, 2023 − a Saturday − Steinbrecher was in her apartment on the kibbutz when Hamas gunmen attacked it.

“They’ve arrived, they have me,” she said in a voice message to her family before vanishing.

As a youngster, before becoming a vet, Steinbrecher volunteered at her school’s petting zoo.

Most of the Palestinian prisoners set for release on Sunday were women, according to a list released by Israel’s justice ministry. The youngest, Israeli media reported, was Mahmoud Aliowat, who is 15.

Some of the prisoners Israel is releasing have been charged with terrorism and murder. It is not unusual for Israel to detain Palestinians, sometimes indefinitely, without charging them, for relatively minor offenses such as throwing stones. It was not immediately clear what circumstances caused Aliowat’s detention.

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The ceasefire deal is expected to take place in three stages. The first stage, which came into effect Sunday, for six weeks, is due to see 33 hostages in exchange for more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners. During this time, Israeli troops will withdraw from all heavily populated areas of Gaza.

Negotiations for the second phase, when more hostages will be released and the war would end, are expected to begin in early February. The third phase involves Gaza’s reconstruction and the return of any remaining deceased hostages. A previous truce between Israel and Hamas in November 2023 that lasted a week before fighting resumed enabled 105 hostages to leave Gaza. Israel released about 240 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

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Israel has been preparing for the hostages for several days, mobilizing specialist medical and trauma units to the border with Gaza, where tents and small buildings were erected to receive them.

“We expect that every aspect of their physical and mental health will be affected,” said Hagai Levine, an Israeli public health physician who acts as the head of health for the Hostages Families Forum.

With Sunday’s releases, Israel believes 95 hostages remain in Gaza, four of whom were abducted prior to the war.

Four more Israeli hostages are due to be released in a week’s time. After that, three hostages will be returned every week for a period of four weeks. Finally, 14 hostages will be returned on the final, sixth week of phase one.

There was no word as to when the two youngest hostages, 2-year-old Kfir Bibas and his 4-year-old brother Ariel, might be released. Kfir Bibas has spent both of his birthdays in Hamas captivity.

Hamas is holding seven Americans. Four are believed dead. Two of the presumed living ones − Sagui Dekel-Chen, 36, from Connecticut, and Keith Siegel, 64, of North Carolina, are expected to be released within the next six weeks. The third, a soldier − Edan Alexander , 21, from New Jersey − may have to wait a while longer.

That’s something Damari’s family and friends won’t have to do now.

She suffered gunshot wounds to her hand and leg when she was abducted.

Hamas killed her dog.

An Israeli-British citizen, Damari’s loved ones described her as a “friend to everyone,” a central figure in a youth community group on Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where she lives, who was “always there” for anyone who needed help.

Her family said she likes karaoke nights, hats and the Premier League’s Tottenham Hotspur soccer team.

“All Emily’s mum Mandy wants to do is hug Emily,” a friend of the family told the BBC.

“She won’t believe (she’s out) until she sees it.”

In a brief statement sent to media after her daughter’s release, Mandy Damari thanked “everyone who never stopped fighting” for her daughter’s freedom “throughout this horrendous ordeal.”

“After 471 days,” she said. “Emily is finally home.”