By WAFAA SHURAFA and MARIAM FAM, Associated Press

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Eager for the bloodshed, displacement and destruction to stop, many Palestinians in Gaza were relieved to hear news that Israel and Hamas agreed to a pause in their devastating two-year war. But it was mixed with pain from staggering losses and concern about what comes next.

“Once we heard the news about the truce, we felt happy,” said Ibrahim Shurrab from Khan Younis. “We ask God for the happiness to continue for us and for our Palestinian people and for us to return to our homes despite the pain and suffering,” he added, speaking in Muwasi, an area crowded with tents sheltering Palestinians who were forced to flee their homes.

Nevin Qudeeh said she felt the greatest sense of relief since the war erupted two years ago. She’ll be even happier, she added, when she can return home.

“We’re staying on the streets.”

Israel’s offensive in Gaza, launched in response to Hamas’ attack into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and caused vast destruction, displacement and suffering in Gaza. The war also brought famine to parts of the territory.

In Deir al-Balah, some children greeted the news with whistles, claps and celebratory chants of “Allahu akbar,” the Arabic phrase for “God is great.”

Mahmoud Wadi said he received the news with “massive happiness and an indescribable feeling.”

Others in the Gaza Strip wrestled with mixed emotions.

“I am happy and unhappy,” said Mohammad Al-Farra. “We have lost a lot of people and lost loved ones, friends,” relatives and homes that are about a lot more than stones and physical buildings, he said.

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One cannot help but wonder what the day after would look like, he said — or where to even begin picking up the pieces. “The situation is very difficult.”

But he said they would overcome future hardships just like they’ve been doing.

Taghreed al-Jabali, displaced from Khan Younis, shared the mixed feelings.

“We don’t know whether to feel happy or sad,” she said, lamenting the killings and losses of the last two years, including children missing two full years of school.

“Our sons and daughters didn’t receive education. A whole generation was lost. Two generations were lost, not just one. May God make it up for us,” she said.

Mohamed al-Nashar from Gaza City said people feel “very cautious and we are fearful of what is to come.”

He worried that a truce could be violated at any moment, adding that Israeli strikes have been persistent in areas where the army is still operating.

Some were skeptical about Israel following through on a deal but held out hope.

Explosions were seen Thursday morning in northern Gaza as Israeli strikes continued. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strikes but earlier in the day said it had begun preparations for the implementation of the ceasefire and that troops were planning to shift to “adjusted deployment lines.”

Israel and Hamas have agreed to a pause in their war and the release of the remaining 48 hostages, around 20 of them believed to be alive, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

Uncertainty remains about some of the thornier aspects of the plan advanced by U.S. President Donald Trump — such as whether and how Hamas will disarm, and who will govern Gaza. But the sides appear closer than they have been in months to ending the war.

In the Gaza Strip, where much of the territory lies in ruins, Palestinians have been desperate for a breakthrough. Thousands fleeing Israel’s latest ground offensive have set up makeshift tents along the beach in the central part of the territory, sometimes using blankets for shelter.

In their 2023 attack on Israel, Hamas-led fighters abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200, mostly civilians. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says the Palestinian death toll has exceeded 67,000 people. The ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants but says around half of the deaths were women and children, is part of the Hamas-run government. The United Nations and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties.

“We’re a people who’ve suffered from the injustice of the (Israeli) occupation and the injustice of the war,” said Samir Moammer, displaced from Rafah. “Education has stopped. People’s lives have stopped.”

He said he prays to God for the war and the bloodshed to end.

“The occupation has returned us to the Stone Age,” he said. “We ask God to complete this happiness and for people to return to how they were before.”

Fam reported from Cairo. Toqa Ezzidin in Cairo contributed to this report.

A new stormwater system at the Highland Bridge development collects run off and filters it before it can reach the Mississippi River.

Nathan Campeau, the vice president and senior water resources engineer for Barr Engineering, said the system removes phosphorus and trash. Traditional stormwater systems generally don’t do filtration and send water directly into rivers or lakes.

“So instead of just rushing off the site very quickly, we’re slowly releasing that clean water. So we’re first cleaning it through those different filtration mechanisms, and then we are holding it back in a pond, basically by filling up the bathtub and letting it slowly drain out,” Campeau said.

Cleaning 64 million gallons of water a year

The underground system cleans an estimated amount of 64 million gallons of stormwater annually. Campeau said the new system protects the Mississippi River and Hidden Falls Creek park from erosion.

Located at the former Ford Motors Assembly plant, the Highland Bridge development has a stormwater system with five rain gardens, five underground filtration centers that collect and treat the stormwater. The clean water will then go into a central pond which goes back in the stream, Campeau said. ​

The reworking of the system started as early as 2007, after it was announced that the Ford Motor assembly plant was closing, according to Melanie McMahon, interim director of the Department of Planning and Economic Development.

McMahon said the city of St. Paul worked with developer Ryan Companies and the Capitol Region Watershed District to put in plans to redesign the area after the plant left.

“It has been a decades-long process really with the plant closure in 2011, the vision for the site adopted in 2017, and then Ryan Companies closing on the land to become the developer in 2019,” McMahon said.

Along with the stormwater system, the development now has a pedestrian and bike paths and a plaza near Hidden Falls according to the city website.

Project Excellence Award

The stormwater system stood out to the Water Environment Federation, a non-profit association that provides education on clean water. Last week Monday, the Highland Bridge Project won the Project Excellence Award for its green stormwater infrastructure system. This is the first time a project in Minnesota has received this award.

The award is meant to highlight innovation in water projects. The applicants are judged based on certain criteria, like the complexity of the system, its relevance and other factors, according to the Water Environment Federation website.

McMahon said the system stood out for the award because it transformed an industrial area into an inviting public space that supports both recreation and improved water management.

“Taking this and turning it into a public amenity, something that is both sustainable, great for the environment, and something that you want to spend time around was a total flip from how stormwater is typically used in development projects,” McMahon said.

Bob Fossum, deputy administrator of the Capitol Regional Watershed District, said getting the national award was rewarding for everyone involved.

“To receive the national recognition that we did was very gratifying to be able to showcase this project on a national stage, which was nice,” Fossum said.

While the city won the award, McMahon said the area is still developing. She said she was glad the city won the award, but was happier that people had a place to relax.

“It was so amazing that you had this whole generation walking through the site, playing, on the playgrounds, going by the water feature, and they can’t even fathom that it could have been 120 acre concrete pad and factory,” McMahon said.

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By SAM MEDNICK and TIA GOLDENBERG, Associated Press

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — For the past two years, it’s been Israel’s ground zero of anguish, uncertainty, torment and despair. But early on Thursday, the central Tel Aviv area known as Hostages Square was a burst of unfettered jubilation.

A Champagne bottle was popped open to cheers from the crowd. Sweets were doled out. Tears of joy mixed with laughter and long embraces as the news sunk in: The struggle to free Israeli captives held in Gaza appears to finally be coming to a close.

“Matan is coming home!” yelled Einav Zangauker, arguably the most prominent face of the campaign to free the hostages, referring to her captive son. Her arms raised to the sky, she shouted out “Thank you!” as a crowd of supporters, families of hostages, and former hostages freed earlier in the war filled the square.

“I want to smell his smell,” she told reporters of her son. “If I have one dream, it is seeing Matan sleep in his own bed.”

After their loved ones were kidnapped in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war, the families of hostages have been thrust into a thankless battle for their freedom. They’ve traveled the world meeting leaders, squared off against Israeli politicians skeptical of their intentions, pled tirelessly for the release of their relatives from a nightmare that would not end.

Until Thursday.

After U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Hamas had struck a deal that is meant to free the remaining hostages, the tension in the square began to lift. Israel says that of the 250 initially taken captive, 20 of the hostages that remain in Gaza are alive and 28 are dead.

The clock flashing the number of days, minutes and seconds since the harrowing October morning that upended their lives — a fixture in the square — still beamed down onto the families and their supporters. But rather than dragging on to what felt like eternity, the ticking seconds now pushed closer to the hostages’ impending release.

“For two years I have been fighting for the life of my man,” Rebecca Bohbot, whose husband Elkana was taken hostage on Oct. 7, 2023, wrote on Instagram. “This is the moment that a little boy will return to hug his father, a moment when my family comes back to life.”

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Central to the celebrations on Thursday was Trump himself, whom many families of hostages and many Israelis credit with pressing their leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to agree to a deal. A person donned a costume of Trump and waved American flags, families expressed effusive thanks for the American leader and some chanted that he deserved a Nobel Peace Prize.

But above all else, the sadness that has settled over Israel since the attack 24 months ago began to dissipate as the square came to life under a night sky. The darkness of that day has never really left the minds of Israelis, with Hostages Square a place where the captives, their families and all Israelis can now feel some relief.

“I get chills all over from head to toe,” said Omer Wenkert, a former captive freed earlier in the war, of the news of a deal. “I can’t even imagine the amount of joy we will be able to feel, as a nation, finally.”

Goldenberg reported from Washington.

PARMA HEIGHTS, Ohio (AP) — Police in northeast Ohio went in pursuit of a runaway inflatable pumpkin after receiving calls of a large, orange inflatable object on the run.

Body camera footage from the Parma Heights Police Department shows the inflatable pumpkin rolling down the street was difficult to grasp.

Officers eventually stopped and detained the inflatable pumpkin Tuesday night. The footage shows an officer holding onto the giant plastic gourd and saying to a colleague that he was “following it” but “it kept blowing away.”

After its capture, multiple officers attempted to deflate the pumpkin but they failed and had to work together to push the giant orange ball in the back of a police car.

“I’ve never seen that before,” an officer can be heard saying of the inflatable Halloween decoration packed tight in the backseat.

The officers then drove the pumpkin back to its home where it is on display “to be enjoyed by all who pass it throughout the remainder of this fall season,” Parma Heights Police Department spokesman Sgt. Eric Taylor said in a statement.

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