2023-11-24 19:51:12
They are free. For the first time since October 7, Hamas released 13 Israeli hostages this Friday that it was holding captive. Evacuated via the Egyptian border, they were taken care of by the Israeli army and should then be transferred to hospitals in Israel.
How did the operation go?
The hostages were initially handed over to the Red Cross, before being taken care of by the Israeli security services and the IDF, as was the case on October 20 and 23 when two people were taken each time released by Hamas.
10 Thais and 1 Filipino were also released by the Islamist movement, according to figures from the Red Cross and Qatar, bringing the total number of hostages released to 24. The release of these other 11 hostages would not concern the agreement between Israel and Hamas.
The operations, dubbed “Gates of Heaven,” took place at the Rafah crossing point on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. In exchange for their release, Israel announced the release of 39 Palestinian prisoners, 24 women and 15 teenagers.
Once in the hands of the Israeli authorities, the hostages were to be repatriated by the army by plane via El-Arich airport (Egypt), after passing through the Kerem Shalom border post.
Who are the 13 Israelis released?
Many of the released hostages come from the Nir Oz kibbutz, bordering the Gaza Strip and massacred during the October 7 attack. Friday evening, the Israeli press quickly revealed the identity of these 13 people.
The Forum for Hostages and Missing Families, based in Israel, confirmed the identity of four of them to Le Parisien: Emilia and Daniel Aloni, Adina Moshe and Margalit Moses. Other confirmations will occur throughout the evening.
What treatment in hospitals?
The ex-hostages must then be transported to two hospitals in the suburbs of Tel Aviv: Wolfson and Schneider. Only the most serious cases will be referred to the Soroka medical center, located in Beersheba, in the south of the country. These establishments are among the six selected for their trauma services, pediatrics or even for the care of victims of sexual abuse and intended to soon accommodate hostages.
In the morning, Ziv Agmon, advisor in charge of the file at the Prime Minister’s office, indicated that the Israeli hostages would only be reunited with their families after their arrival in one of the country’s hospitals prepared to welcome them.
They should be cared for out of sight, in spaces where only their families and medical staff will be allowed to join them, in order to protect them from the media, kept away. “Those who do not need care will return home,” Ziv Agmon said at the press center set up in Tel Aviv to follow the release process.
How will the interrogations by the intelligence services take place?
The Israeli intelligence services should only question the released hostages in a second phase, “when they feel sufficiently ready”, according to Éric Denécé, director of the French Center for Intelligence Research (CF2R), according to whom these interrogations are usually done “right away” for memory reasons.
This first release of hostages comes as part of an agreement negotiated between Hamas and the Israeli government under the aegis of Qatar. It provides for the release by Hamas of 50 hostages (minors and women) at the rate of a dozen people per day, for four days. In exchange, Israel must release three Palestinian prisoners per hostage recovered, or around 150 people. Here again, the agreement provides that these will be women and adolescents.
What reactions?
Following the release of the first 13 Israeli hostages, Benjamin Netanyahu said he was determined “to obtain the return” of all the detainees. “We have now completed the return of the first hostages: children, their mothers and other women. Each of them represents an entire world. But I insist to you: we are determined to obtain the return of all the hostages. This is one of the objectives of the war and we are determined to achieve all objectives,” he insisted in a statement.
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