It was a day of high human emotion, and high political spectacle.

Finally, after 738 days, Israeli hostages who had been kept in horrendous conditions in Gaza were coming home to their families , as part of a ceasefire deal that sees the hostages exchanged for Palestinian prisoners and a partial pullback of Israeli forces.

Also finally, at least for now, Israel had stopped its indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza, which has left more than 67,000 people dead, thousands more injured and a population of more than 2 million starving, traumatised and displaced.

Riding on the back of these profound human events was the political theatre of US President Donald Trump arriving in the Middle East in what commentators in both the US and the Middle East described as a victory lap.

Little wonder. T

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