2023-11-25 04:52:58
Several Israeli and foreign hostages, captured on Israeli soil by Hamas militants on October 7, during the terrorist attacks, and taken to the Gaza Strip, were released yesterday within the framework of an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian group, which also includes the entry into force of a truce and the release of prisoners in Israeli jails.
A source in the Israeli security services confirmed that “thirteen Israeli hostages” had been freed and that, according to the army, they were already in Israel.
Among those released are four children and six women, according to an official Israeli list. The hostages “have undergone initial medical examinations in Israeli territory,” a military statement said.
Sources close to Hamas indicated that the captives were handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the Gaza Strip, before being transferred to Egypt.
In parallel, and apart from the initial agreement, Thailand announced that several Thais were also released. The agreement sealed on Wednesday with the help of the emirate established a four-day truce that might be extended and the exchange of fifty hostages held captive in Gaza for 150 Palestinian prisoners in Israel. A total of 24 hostages (thirteen Israelis, ten Thais and one Filipino) were handed over yesterday by Hamas to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza, while Israel freed 39 women and minors from its prisons, the Qatari Foreign Ministry said.
The figure was confirmed by the Palestinian Prisoners Club, an NGO that defends imprisoned Palestinians.
According to the ICRC, they must be transferred to the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967. The truce and the release of hostages comes following 49 days of a war that broke out on October 7. That day, Hamas militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped regarding 240 people in southern Israel. They attacked several kibbutzim, killing entire families, and broke into a party being held near the border. Dozens of videos on social media document how dozens of young people who were trying to escape were killed in cold blood. The Jewish State has since bombed the Gaza Strip, governed by Hamas since 2007. The Islamist group claims that the airstrikes have already caused the death of 14,854 people, including 6,150 children. “We are determined to bring back all our hostages,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu following the release of the thirteen people.
“The war has not ended”. The truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza came into effect yesterday and is the first sign of detente following weeks of war. At dawn, thousands of people who had fled to areas near the border into Egypt prepared to return home. The Israeli army had warned that it would not allow the displaced to return to the northern part of the Strip, which it still considers a “war zone” because it houses several Hamas combat positions, located in the middle of civilian structures, such as schools, hospitals or mosques, but Palestinian officials told the population that they might return, which led to violent clashes with troops. In the sky, Israeli planes dropped warning leaflets: “The war is not over. Returning to the north is prohibited and very dangerous.”
In southern Israel, fifteen minutes following the start of the truce, anti-aircraft warning sirens were activated in several towns near the border with Gaza, the army said without giving further details.
Hamas announced “a complete cessation of military activities” for four days, during which fifty hostages will be released. For each of them, “three Palestinian prisoners” will be released, he indicated.
“Incredibly difficult.” Maayan Zin learned on Thursday that her two daughters were not part of the hostages who were released today. “It’s incredibly difficult for me,” she said on the social network X, although she was “relieved for the other families.” Israel gave a list of three hundred Palestinians (33 women and 267 minors under 19 years of age) who can be released. Among them are 49 Hamas members. The international community welcomed the agreement and hopes that it will be a first step towards a lasting ceasefire. But the Israeli government and army said they will “continue” fighting to “eliminate” Hamas once the truce ends. “Taking control of the northern Gaza Strip is the first stage of a long war and we are preparing for the next phases,” said army spokesman Daniel Hagari.
The Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, declared that the truce “cannot be just a pause” and called for using this respite to prevent the resumption of fighting in Gaza.
Hostilities persisted until the last moment. Two hours before the start of the truce, a Hamas government official said that Israeli soldiers “conducted an assault on the Indonesian Hospital” in Gaza, where there are regarding two hundred patients. The bombings devastated the Palestinian territory and have displaced 1.7 of its 2.4 million inhabitants, according to the UN, which denounces a serious humanitarian crisis. Since October 9, the population has been subjected to a “total siege” by Israel, which has cut off supplies of food, water, electricity and medicine.
The truce should allow the entry of “a greater number of humanitarian and aid convoys, including fuel,” according to Qatar. Yesterday, 137 trucks with humanitarian aid were unloaded at the reception point of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) on the first day of the truce, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said this Friday. Of the trucks sent from Nitzana to the Rafah border crossing, on the border with Egypt, “137 trucks of goods were unloaded at the Unrwa reception point in Gaza,” OCHA says in a statement, in which it reports that this is the largest “humanitarian convoy received since October 7” in the Strip. A group of international NGOs assured that the aid received during the truce will be “insufficient” to provide the necessary aid and demanded a true ceasefire.
The war also touches Israel’s northern border, where in recent weeks there have been almost daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, an ally of Hamas.
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