President Trump listens to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he addresses the Knesset, in Jerusalem, Oct. 13, 2025. Photo: Saul Loeb/Pool/REUTERS

Each of the former hostages described their experience in captivity to the prime minister, detailing long hours held underground with limited access to sunlight and scarce food.

Avinatan Or, who lost at least 60 pounds in Hamas captivity, was still relishing the embrace of his partner, another former hostage, Noa Argamani.

Netanyahu said he learned that, like many of the other former detainees, Or never lost hope.

"They believed that one way or the other, we'd get them out," the Israeli leader told CBS News.

Now, the overriding question is whether this moment of hope for Israel and the region can last.

Israel is giving "peace a chance," but the war is not over

President Trump has asserted repeatedly since helping to broker the ceasefire and hostage release agreement that took effect on Friday that the war is over. But it clearly is not.

Israeli troops are still deployed in more than half of Gaza, and in the rest of the decimated Palestinian territory, CBS News' team in Gaza has seen Hamas back on the streets, still armed, and reportedly confronting rival groups — once again exerting its power.

Asked about those realities, Netanyahu told CBS News that his government had agreed "to give peace a chance."

He noted that the conditions of President Trump's 20-point peace plan "are very clear — it's not only that we get the hostages out without getting our military out, but that we would subsequently have both demilitarization and disarmament. They're not the same thing. First Hamas has to give up its arms. And second, you want to make sure that there are no weapons factories inside Gaza. There's no smuggling of weapons into Gaza.

"We also agreed: Okay, let's get the first part done. Now let's give a chance to do the second part peacefully, which is my hope."

Netanyahu, in his wide-ranging interview with Dokoupil, said it was "always the responsibility of the leader of the Jewish state to make sure that the Jewish state is never imperiled with its very existence."

In a U.S. poll conducted by the Pew Research Center in late September, only 35% of the respondents voiced a positive opinion of Israel's government, down from 47% in 2022, before the war started. The survey also revealed a significant age gap in American support for the Trump administration's provision of robust military aid to Israel amid the war, with those 65 and older being more than twice as likely as those under 30 (34% vs. 13%) to say the U.S. was providing "about the right amount of aid to Israel."

Dokoupil asked Netanyahu whether it would be possible to fix such perceptions, and how.

"I think so," the Israeli leader said. "I think the first fix is to finish the war as speedily as possible — something that I have sought to do against all this contrarian propaganda. Of course I want to end the war. Who wants it to continue? You know, I've been to war myself, I've been in battles … you have to be crazy to want wars to prolong."

There are many challenges to meeting even that initial goal, as Hamas has thus far refused to completely disarm, the remains of at least 20 deceased Israeli hostages have yet to be returned, and Israel said Wednesday that it would limit the amount of humanitarian aid entering Gaza — holding up key aspects of the first phase of Mr. Trump's peace deal.

But what comes next is just as unclear.