A long-awaited ceasefire between Hamas and Israel went into force on Sunday, followed by the first exchange of hostages and detainees by the two sides. The ceasefire and the process of releasing the hostages and prisoners will continue over the next three months. It has already caused discontent among far-right members of PM Binyamin Netanyahu's Israeli government, with one minister quitting. But for now, the release of the first hostages has been welcomed in Israel. FRANCE 24's Oliver Farry spoke to Oliver McTernan, the co-founder and director of Forward Thinking, a charity that works on conflict resolution and mediation in the Middle East. He gave his take on the prospects of the ceasefire holding in Gaza. 

Later this Monday, Donald Trump will be inaugurated for the second time as US president. He has already made waves in the weeks before his return to office, threatening a mass deportation of undocumented migrants on day one, tariffs on Canada and Mexico as well as expressing a desire to acquire Greenland. For more on what to expect from Trump's second term, we spoke to Laurie Dundon, a US domestic politics and foreign policy specialist, in Perspective.

A British-Palestinian surgeon who was in Gaza at the outbreak of war between Hamas and Israel in October 2023 has spoken of his hope that the ceasefire deal will mean the Palestinian people can begin to rebuild their lives. Ghassan Abu-Sittah worked for a month and a half in the Gaza Strip trying to deal with 500 wounded people every single day, in a hospital designed to have just 600 beds. He said the situation was akin to being trapped by a "tsunami" of dead and wounded. He spoke to us in Perspective.

French former hostage Louis Arnaud shared his two-year ordeal in Iran's Evin Prison in an exclusive interview with FRANCE 24's Stuart Norval. Arnaud, a banking consultant, had been sentenced to five years in jail on national security charges after being arrested in September 2022 while travelling through Iran. He was kept in solitary confinement for large periods. "Everything is done so that you are deprived of your humanity," Arnaud told us in his first interview since his release in June 2024. French President Emmanuel Macron is now urging Tehran to free three other French nationals "without delay".

One of the world’s leading advocates for people with mental health issues has spoken to FRANCE 24 about her own struggles and how she's been able to turn them around to help others. Amid an abusive relationship and an undiagnosed bipolar disorder, Hauwa Ojeifo attempted suicide but then began to write about her situation in a blog entitled "She Writes Woman". The blog has since become a website and an entire organisation helping people in her home country of Nigeria and across the world. She spoke to us from Abuja in Perspective.

An award-winning director has told FRANCE 24 about his short film that uncovers the world of a remarkable young woman and her family's journey to understand it. Makayla is a teenage girl living with a rare form of autism that has rendered her essentially nonverbal. But thanks to a simple technique, she has begun to communicate for the first time. The story is captured in the film "Makayla's Voice: A Letter to the World". Filmmaker Julio Palacio spoke to us in Perspective.

Talks resume this Monday in Geneva between Iran and the UK, France and Germany over Tehran's nuclear programme. The discussions are a continuation of ones held last month and come ahead of the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump next week. The talks are described by all sides as "consultations" rather than "negotiations", but France's foreign ministry says they intend to work towards a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear programme, the progress of which it calls extremely problematic. In Perspective, FRANCE 24's Oliver Farry spoke to Lukasz Kulesa, Director of Proliferation and Nuclear Policy at the Royal United Services Institute. 

From being jumped on by a polar bear while camping in the Northwest Passage to diving in Antarctica, Paul Rose has collected innumerable stories throughout his diverse career. He is currently Expedition Leader for National Geographic's Pristine Seas expeditions. Last year, his team discovered what they say is the largest coral colony on the planet during an expedition in the Solomon Islands in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. "It shows us how much there is to discover in the ocean," he tells FRANCE 24. He explains that the colony is in excellent health, giving hope about the power of protection measures at a time when most of the world's coral could be at risk of bleaching. 

According to its chief editor Hinda Abdi Mohamoud, Bilan Media gives Somali women "a space to work" and "real editorial power". Somalia's first female-only media outlet covers topics including climate change, people living with albinism and HIV/AIDS, while also encouranging period education for young girls. However, it's not an easy industry for Somali women to work in. "You can get trapped [...] you can be attacked," our guest explains. But this seems to make her even more determined: "It's the thing that we want to change [...] that people believe that women cannot do the hard work." She spoke to us in Perspective.

As France marks 10 years since the terror attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, we speak to journalist and filmmaker Paul Moreira, who witnessed the immediate aftermath of the massacre. Moreira's production company had offices next door to those of Charlie Hebdo, and upon arriving at the building on January 7, 2015, he compared the scene to a war zone that he had witnessed in Iraq. Later, in a bid to better understand what goes on in the minds of jihadists more generally, he produced a documentary entitled "ISIS: Birth of a Monster". It also focused on recruitment methods used by the Islamic State group. "I wanted to expose the tricks and the lies and the way they were manipulating young kids," Moreira tells us.