Tel Aviv: Hamas militants handed over four captive female Israeli soldiers to the Red Cross in Gaza City on Saturday after parading them in front of a crowd. Israel followed with the release of the first 70 of 200 Palestinian prisoners or detainees due to be set free as part of the fragile ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
The four smiled broadly as they waved and gave the thumbs-up from a stage in Gaza City’s Palestine Square, militants on either side of them and a crowd of thousands watching, before they were led off to waiting Red Cross vehicles. They were likely acting under duress, with previously released hostages saying they were held in brutal conditions and forced to record propaganda videos.
Israel meanwhile released 70 Palestinian prisoners who will not be allowed to return to the Gaza Strip or West Bank, according to Egypt’s state-run Qahera TV, which said they had arrived on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with Gaza. Egypt served as a key mediator in more than a year of talks that led to the truce agreement.
As the four soldiers were released, hundreds of people cheered in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square where they were watching the drama unfold on a big screen television.
“I’m speechless,” said Aviv Bercovich, one of the onlookers. “I had goosebumps watching them. I just want the war to end.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office later released a video showing the freed hostages being welcomed at an Israeli army base. One of them, Liri Albag, smiled, gave two thumbs up and made a heart shape with her hand before getting into a van.
Netanyahu’s office later said that Arbel Yehoud, a civilian hostage held by Hamas, was supposed to have been released Saturday. It said Israel would not allow Palestinians to begin returning to northern Gaza, which had been expected to begin by Sunday, until she is freed.
A senior Hamas official said the group has informed mediators that Yehoud will be released next week.
Meantime, an Egyptian official involved in the negotiations called the matter a “minor issue” that mediators are working to resolve. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The crowds in Tel Aviv and also in Gaza City began gathering early in the day in anticipation of the second such exchange between Israel and Hamas since a ceasefire began in the Gaza Strip last weekend. The excitement in Israel was palpable, with TV stations filled with live reports from smiling news anchors and reporters interviewing ecstatic friends and relatives of the hostages.
The truce is aimed at winding down the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and the militant group. The fragile deal has so far held, quieting airstrikes and rockets and allowing for increased aid to flow into the tiny coastal territory.
When the ceasefire started Sunday, three hostages held by the militants were released in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners, all women and children.
The four Israeli soldiers, Karina Ariev, 20, Daniella Gilboa, 20, Naama Levy, 20, and Albag, 19, were captured in Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war.
In exchange, Israel was to release 200 prisoners, including 121 who were serving life sentences, according to a list released by Hamas.
The more notorious militants being released include Mohammad Odeh, 52, and Wael Qassim, 54, both from east Jerusalem. They were accused of carrying out a series of deadly Hamas attacks against Israelis, including a bombing at a cafeteria at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2002 that killed nine people, including five US citizens.
The four soldiers released were taken from Nahal Oz base near the border with Gaza when Palestinian militants overran it, killing more than 60 soldiers there. The female abductees had all served in a unit of lookouts charged with monitoring threats along the border. A fifth female soldier in their unit, Agam Berger, 20, was abducted with them but not included in the list.
“This is huge,” said Gaza City resident Radwan Abu Rawiya, one of thousands who watched the hostages turned over in Palestine Square.
“People forgot about the war, destruction and are celebrating,” he said.
In a televised statement, Israel’s army spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari confirmed the released hostages were in Israeli hands and on their way home, while criticising what he called the “cynical” public display of the young women by Hamas before their release.
He also said that Israel is concerned about the fate of the two youngest hostages — Kfir and Ariel Bibas — and their mother Shiri. Kfir Bibas marked his second birthday in captivity earlier this month.
Hagari said the army is committed to bringing all hostages home.
Israel had been expected to begin pulling back from the Netzarim corridor — an east-west road dividing Gaza in two — and allowing displaced Palestinians in the south to return to their former homes in the north for the first time since the beginning of the war.
But that appears to be on hold pending the release of Yehoud.
The Hamas-run interior ministry said earlier said that displaced Palestinians will be allowed to return to northern Gaza starting Sunday. The ministry, which oversees police forces, said Palestinians will be able to move between southern and northern Gaza on foot through the coastal Rashid road.
What happens after the deal’s initial six-week phase is uncertain, but many hope it will lead to the end of a war that has levelled wide swaths of Gaza, displaced the vast majority of its population and left hundreds of thousands of people at risk of famine.
The conflict began with a cross-border attack led by Hamas on October 7, 2023, when Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 250 others hostage.
More than 100 hostages were freed in a weeklong truce the following month. But dozens have remained in captivity for over a year with no contact with the outside world. Israel believes at least a third of the more than 90 captives still inside Gaza were killed in the initial attack or died in captivity.
While many rejoiced in Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square after the four soldiers were released Saturday, some worried about the fate of those still in captivity.
“It’s hard that she’s still there,” said Yoni Collins, a family friend of Berger, the fifth female soldier taken from Nahal Oz base.
“There were five girls, four are out and now she’s there alone,” he said. “We’re just waiting for her to come home.”
Israel’s air and ground war, one of the deadliest and most destructive in decades, has killed over 47,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not say how many were militants. They say women and children make up more than half the fatalities.
