2023-11-26 00:33:14
Seventeen hostages, including 13 Israelis, held in the Gaza Strip for weeks, were released Saturday evening, on the second day of a truce between the Palestinian movement Hamas and Israel which is to release 39 Palestinian prisoners in exchange. The Ezzedine al-Qassam brigades, the armed wing of the Islamist movement, announced that they had handed over 13 Israeli hostages and four foreigners to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) shortly before midnight.
Egyptian television footage showed the convoy of hostages passing into Egypt through the Rafah crossing in the southern Gaza Strip, and Israel later said they had arrived in Israel. Four Thai hostages, who were not part of the deal, were also released, according to Egypt.
A delay in release
The Palestinian Islamist movement announced in the afternoon that it was delaying the release of this second group of hostages, after a first Friday, accusing Israel of violating the agreement, particularly concerning deliveries of humanitarian aid to the north of the territory. The Israeli army, which has denied any breach of the agreement, considers the northern third of the Gaza Strip as a combat zone housing, according to it, the infrastructure center of Hamas, which took power in 2007. It ordered the population to leave and prevents anyone from returning.
Despite this warning, thousands of displaced Gazans took advantage of the break in fighting to try to return home to the north. And according to the Hamas Ministry of Health, seven of these people were injured on Saturday by Israeli fire. The spokesperson for the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Majed Al-Ansari, later indicated on X that “the obstacles to releasing the prisoners” had finally been “overcome”.
Ultimately, the release of 50 hostages
The agreement, also concluded with the support of the United States and Egypt and entered into force on Friday, provides for four days of truce which should allow the release of 50 hostages and 150 Palestinian prisoners. This pause, renewable, also includes the entry of humanitarian aid and fuel into Gaza. The Israeli bombings, incessant since the October 7 attack and the military offensive on northern Gaza, have stopped, as have the Islamist movement’s rocket attacks on Israel.
In Israel, relatives of the hostages still held in Gaza are waiting in anguish for an end to a nightmare that has lasted for seven weeks. In Tel Aviv, tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in the evening on Hostage Square to demand their release. “Get them out of hell,” one banner read. “Today, we are happy to see our people return but we must not forget all those who have not yet returned,” testified Yael Adar, the daughter-in-law of Yaffa Adar, 85 years old and the oldest of the former -hostages, on the Ynet news site.
Scenes of jubilation in the West Bank
In the occupied West Bank, scenes of jubilation, amid fireworks, Palestinian flags and various movements including the green banner of Hamas, accompanied the return of the prisoners released Friday evening. In East Jerusalem, occupied by Israel since 1967, demonstrations of joy were, however, prohibited.
“I was waiting for the day when I would be released from prison and could hug my mother,” Rawan Nafez Mohammad Abou Matar, who returned to her home in Beitlo, near Ramallah, told AFP on Saturday. The young woman was sentenced in 2015, when she was 21, to nine years in prison for attempted murder of an Israeli border guard.
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