GAZA, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- At dawn on his first day of freedom, Mohammed Zaqout stood outside a tent in Khan Younis City in the southern coastal enclave and drew a long, trembling breath.

The air felt damp with sea breeze and dust, yet to him, it carried the scent of life. Above him stretched a sky he had not seen without bars for nearly two years.

"It felt like my lungs were waking up again," the 33-year-old father of three told Xinhua as his eyes fixed on the horizon.

Zaqout was among hundreds of Palestinians freed on Monday under a prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas.

The release marked a rare moment of joy in a land battered by war and loss, as Gaza has yet to recover from two years of devastating conflict.

That morning, scenes of jubilation and tears filled the streets of Khan Younis as buses carrying the freed prisoners arrived. Families crowded outside Nasser Hospital, waving flags and chanting, and car horns blared in celebration.

Zaqout stepped down from the bus still wearing his gray prison uniform. His eyes searched through the crowd until they found his mother, who was weeping uncontrollably.

"I couldn't believe she was alive," he said, recalling how Israeli interrogators had told him his family had been killed. "I kept asking myself what meaning there is in leaving prison if everyone I love is gone."

Walking later through what remained of his neighborhood, he was "shocked by the horror of destruction everywhere."

More than 50 of his relatives had been killed in the war, he said. His family now lives in a temporary tent near the ruins of their home. "When I kissed my children's faces," he added, "it felt like seeing them for the first time."

Inside Israeli prisons, Zaqout described conditions as "catastrophic," accusing the authorities of "deliberately degrading prisoners' dignity."

He said detainees faced isolation, food shortages, and harsh treatment. "They tried to break us, but they couldn't. Even when we were cut off from the world, we held onto our will to live," he said.

"Last night I slept in a tent," he added, "but I felt as though I were in a palace. For the first time in a long while, I woke up without hearing the guards' orders or the cries of others being beaten."

Across Gaza, freed detainees shared similar emotions, joy mixed with disbelief and grief. Many said that breathing the coastal air, seeing the sun, and walking freely through Gaza's streets felt like rediscovering life itself.

In Gaza City, Ahmed al-Balawi's family received him with tears. "We had opened a mourning tent for Ahmed," his mother said. "We were told he had been killed. Seeing him alive again was like a miracle."

Another released prisoner, Ahmed Nasser Nassar, 35, from Beit Lahia, was arrested in October 2024 while working at Kamal Adwan Hospital.

Upon his release, he raised his fingers in a victory sign from the bus window before embracing his family.

"What we experienced in prison was like living in hell," Nassar told Xinhua. "Torture, beatings, endless interrogations, things no one can imagine. But when I felt the sun on my face again, I felt my soul return."

According to the Hamas-run Prisoners' Office and other Palestinian organizations, Israel released about 1,968 Palestinian prisoners, including 1,718 detained after the start of the conflict in October 2023.

In return, Hamas released 20 Israeli hostages alive and handed over four of the remaining 28 bodies to the International Committee of the Red Cross on Monday, under a deal mediated by Egypt, Qatar, Türkiye and the United States.

Mohammed Zaqout, director general of field hospitals in the Gaza-based health authorities, told Xinhua that many of the freed Palestinians were in poor health.

"A scabies outbreak was detected among several of them, along with symptoms of malnutrition and exhaustion," he said, noting that medical teams were treating the released detainees.

The exchange took place as part of efforts to sustain a fragile ceasefire after over two years of fighting.

The ceasefire, which took effect on Friday, followed days of intensive negotiations in Egypt as part of broader understandings that include a prisoner exchange and arrangements to reopen border crossings and facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.

Yet for many released prisoners, returning home meant facing a different kind of pain.

"Freedom is not just stepping out of prison; it is walking through the ruins of everything you once knew, breathing heavy air with the memories of those you lost, and still choosing to live," Saleh Qudaih, a freed prisoner from Khan Younis, told Xinhua.

"Although we are no longer behind bars, we now face a new and uncertain reality marked by grief, devastation, and the struggle to survive," he said.■