Third group of hostages freed, prisoners released in Israel-Hamas deal
Another 17 hostages, including a US girl, have been released by Hamas, while Palestinian women and children have been released from Israeli prisons.
Released hostage Emily Hand, who turned nine years old. Photo courtesy the family
Hamas has freed another group of hostages held in Gaza, including a four-year-old American girl, while Israel was also seen releasing prisoners on the third day of their truce.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it had successfully transferred 17 hostages from Gaza. Hamas said it had handed over 13 Israelis, three Thais and one with Russian citizenship.
The release of some of the hostages captured when Hamas fighters rampaged through southern Israel on October 7 was mirrored by the freeing of Palestinian prisoners, the International Red Cross said. The organisation said it was involved in releasing 19 of them although the total figure remains unclear.
US President Joe Biden said the 4-year-old hostage, Abigail Edan, had witnessed her parents being killed by Hamas fighters during their October 7 raid into Israel and had been held since then.
“What she endured is unthinkable,” Biden said at a news conference in the US.
The four Thais freed “want a shower and to contact their relatives”, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said on social media platform X. All were safe and showed few ill-effects, he said.
The four-day truce is the first halt in fighting in the seven weeks since Hamas killed 1,200 people and took about 240 hostages back into Gaza.I
In response to that attack, Israel vowed to destroy the Hamas militants who run Gaza, bombarding the enclave and mounting a ground offensive in the north. Some 14,800 Palestinians have been killed, Gaza health authorities say, and hundreds of thousands displaced.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday met security forces inside the Gaza Strip. He also said he spoke to Biden about the hostage release, adding that he would welcome extending a temporary truce if it meant that on every additional day 10 captives would be freed.
However, Netanyahu said he also told Biden that, at the end of the truce, Israel would return to its goal of eliminating Hamas.
The killing of a Palestinian farmer in the central Gaza Strip had earlier added to concerns over the fragility of the truce.
The farmer was killed when targeted by Israeli forces east of Gaza’s long-established Maghazi refugee camp, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.
The armed wing of Hamas also said on Sunday that four of its military commanders in the Gaza Strip had been killed, including the commander of the North Gaza brigade, Ahmad Al Ghandour.
Qatar, Egypt and the United States are pressing for the truce to be extended beyond Monday but it is not clear whether that will happen.
Israel had said the ceasefire could be extended if Hamas continued to release at least 10 hostages a day. A Palestinian source had said up to 100 hostages could go free.
Six of the group of 13 Israelis released on Saturday were women and seven were teenagers or children.
The youngest was three-year-old Yahel Shoham, freed with her mother and brother, although her father remains a hostage.
Saturday’s swap followed the previous day’s initial release of 13 Israeli hostages, including children and the elderly, by Hamas in return for the release of 39 Palestinian women and teenagers from Israeli prisons.)Some of the Palestinians arrived at Al-Bireh
Municipality Square in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where thousands of citizens awaited them, a Reuters journalist said.
Violence flared in the West Bank, where Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians, including two minors and at least one gunman, late on Saturday and early Sunday, medics and local sources said.
The deal risked being derailed when Hamas’ armed wing said on Saturday it was delaying releases until Israel met all truce conditions, including committing to let aid trucks into northern Gaza.
Saving the deal took a day of diplomacy mediated by Qatar and Egypt, which President Biden also joined.
Reuters
