By James Sorene

After two terrible years of war there is joy and hope in Israel and Gaza.

Monday will be an emotional rollercoaster as hostages return to Israel after more than 700 days in cruel captivity, exchanged for Palestinian prisoners including 250 serving long sentences for multiple murders.

Gazans are returning to their homes to try and rebuild their lives with whole neighbourhoods in ruins. Both sides are experiencing the deep sorrow of communities destroyed, parents losing children, whole families wiped out and deep trauma that will linger in the minds of survivors.

This mutual exhaustion in Israeli and Palestinian society has in the past propelled their leaders towards historic compromises. After the first Intifada Yitzchak Rabin and Yasser Arafat signed the 1993 agreement to establish the Palestinian Authority in Gaza and the West Bank.

After the second Intifada Prime Minister Sharon withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and in 2008 Prime Minister Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas made serious progress towards a deal to establish a Palestinian state.

The US role was critical, as was the wider prize of peace deals between Israel and the rest of the Arab world. But today is a different reality.

From the Israeli perspective........

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