The Palestinian militant group Hamas released four female Israeli soldier hostages on Saturday in exchange for approximately 200 Palestinian prisoners. This exchange was part of a ceasefire agreement intended to bring an end to the 15-month-long conflict in Gaza.
The four hostages were brought onto a podium in Gaza City, where a large crowd of Palestinians had gathered, surrounded by numerous armed members of Hamas. They waved and smiled before being escorted away and transported in International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) vehicles to Israeli forces.
Hundreds of Israelis gathered at the so-called Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, crying, embracing and cheering as they watched the handover on a giant screen.
The four soldiers – Karina Ariev, Daniela Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag – were all stationed at an observation post on the edge of Gaza and abducted by Hamas fighters who overran their base during the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
They were being reunited with their family at an Israeli military base near the Gaza border, Israel’s military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a video.
They will then be taken to a hospital in central Israel, the Israeli Health Ministry said.
Hamas said 200 prisoners will be freed on Saturday as part of the exchange. They include convicted militants serving life sentences for their involvement in attacks that killed dozens of people. Around 70 are set to be deported, Hamas said.
Saturday’s planned exchange will be the second since a ceasefire began on Jan. 19 and Hamas handed over three Israeli female civilians in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners.
The ceasefire agreement, worked out after months of on-off negotiations brokered by Qatar and Egypt and backed by the United States, has halted the fighting for the first time since a truce that lasted just a week in November 2023.
In the first six-week phase of the deal, Hamas has agreed to release 33 hostages, including children, women, older men and the sick and injured, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, while Israeli troops pull back from some of their positions in the Gaza Strip.
In a subsequent phase, the two sides would negotiate the exchange of the remaining hostages, including men of military age, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, which lies largely in ruins after 15 months of fighting and bombardment.
After Saturday’s release, 90 hostages remain in Gaza, according to Israeli authorities, who have declared around a third of them dead in absentia.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, when militants killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, more than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to health authorities there.
Israel has lost more than 400 soldiers in Gaza combat. Hamas has not revealed how many fighters it has lost. Israel estimates that more than a third of Gaza’s death toll is militants.
(Reuters)
