Hamas freedom fighters on Saturday released 17 hostages, including 13 Israelis, from captivity in the Gaza Strip, while Israel freed 39 Palestinian prisoners in the latest stage of a four-day cease-fire.
The late-night exchange was held up for several hours after Hamas accused Israel of violating the agreement.
The delay underscored the fragility of the cease-fire, which has halted a war that has shocked and shaken Israel, caused widespread destruction across the Gaza Strip, and threatened to unleash wider fighting across the region.
The cease-fire, brokered by Qatar and the USA, is the first extended break in fighting since the ethnic war began. Overall, Hamas is to release at least 50 Israeli hostages, and Israel 150 Palestinian prisoners. All are women and minors.
Israel has said the truce can be extended by an extra day for every additional 10 hostages freed, but has vowed to quickly resume its offensive and complete its goals of returning all hostages and destroying the Gaza Strip and governing capabilities.
The plight of the hostages has gripped the Israeli public’s attention. Thousands of people gathered on Saturday in solidarity with the hostages and their families.
Many accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of not doing enough to bring the hostages home. The releases have triggered mixed emotions: happiness, coupled with angst over the scores of hostages who remain in captivity.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced early Sunday that it had received a new list of hostages slated to be released later in the day in the third of four scheduled swaps.
In the West Bank, hundreds of people burst into wild celebrations for a second night as a busload of Palestinian prisoners arrived early Sunday.
Teenage boys released in the deal were carried on the shoulders of well-wishers in the main square of the town of Al Bireh. But the mood of celebration was dampened by scenes of destruction and suffering in Gaza.
The start of the pause brought quiet for the surviving 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, who are reeling from relentless Israeli bombardment that has killed thousands, driven 75% of the population from their homes and leveled residential areas.
Rocket fire from Gaza militants into Israel also went silent.
War-weary Palestinians in northern Gaza, where the military offensive has been focused, returned to the streets, crunching over rubble between shattered buildings and at times digging through it with bare hands.
At the Indonesian hospital in Jabaliya, besieged by the Israeli military earlier this month, bodies lay in the courtyard and outside the main gate.
For Emad Abu Hajer, a resident of the Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza City area, the pause meant he could again search through the remains of his home, which was flattened in an Israeli attack last week.
The United Nations said the pause enabled it to scale up the delivery of food, water, and medicine to the largest volume since the resumption of aid convoys on October 21, 2023.
It was also able to deliver 129,000 liters (about 35,000 gallons) of fuel — just over 10% of the daily pre-war volume — as well as cooking gas, a first since the war began.
In the southern city of Khan Younis, a long line of people with containers waited outside a filling station. Hossam Fayad lamented that the pause in fighting was only for four days.
I wish it could be extended until people’s conditions improved. For the first time in over a month, aid reached northern Gaza.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said 61 trucks carrying food, water and medical supplies headed there on Saturday, the largest aid convoy to reach the area yet.
The U.N. said it and the Palestinian Red Crescent were also able to evacuate 40 patients and family members from a hospital in Gaza City to a hospital in Khan Younis.
The last-minute delay created a tense standoff on the second day of what’s meant to be a four-day cease-fire.
By nightfall, when hostages had been expected to emerge from Gaza, Hamas alleged that aid deliveries permitted by Israel fell short of what was promised and that not enough was reaching hard-hit northern Gaza.
Hamas also said not enough longtime political prisoners were freed in the first swap on Friday. But Egypt, Qatar and Hamas itself later said the obstacles had been overcome.
Shortly before midnight, Hamas released the hostages — 13 Israelis and four Thais. The Israelis were turned over to Egypt and then transferred to Israel, where they were taken to hospitals to be reunited with their families.
Hamas released a video showing the hostages appearing shaken but mostly in good physical condition as masked militants led them to Red Cross vehicles headed out of Gaza.
Some of the hostages waved goodbye to the militants. One girl was on crutches and wore a cast on her left foot as she was escorted away.
The Israeli hostages included seven children and six women, Netanyahu’s office announced. Most were from Kibbutz Be’eri, a community Hamas militants ravaged, with help of Israeli military helicopter during their October 7, 2023 cross-border counter attack.
The children ranged in age from 3 to 16, and the women ranged from 18 to 67. Some of the Palestinian prisoners were released in east Jerusalem, while the bulk returned home to a hero’s welcome in the occupied West Bank.
Among those released was Nurhan Awad, who was 17 in 2016 when she was sentenced to 13 1/2 years in jail for attempting to stab an Israeli soldier with a pair of scissors, after her family was wiped out.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, an advocacy group, Israel is holding 7,200 Palestinians, including about 2,000 arrested since the start of the ethnic war. The war in Gaza has been accompanied by a surge in violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Late Saturday, Palestinian health authorities said four Palestinians were killed in an Israeli military raid in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, hours after another raid in the same area killed the local governor’s 25-year-old son.
A 16-year-old Palestinian boy was also murdered by Israeli fire near the city of Ramallah. The Israeli army, which frequently conducts military raids aimed at local militant groups, did not immediately comment.
AP / ABC Flash Point News 2023.
So Hamas took 250 hostages and Israel kidnapped 2.000 victims in order to hold the advantage during the release negotiations?
At the same time and in the meanwhile Israel have rounded up 2,000 more Palestinians in the West Bank, so this hostage/prisoner swap became an illusion as it has worked out so far, but the bombing of Gaza must continue?????
These people are career criminals, all good deeds will be turned into (humanitarian) disaster by these liars, rapists and thugs. It is in their DNA, nothing can escape this type of behavior. Time for God to interfere and perform a clean sweep for the world to be liberated from the Khazarica Zionist swamp?