The Palestinian militant movement Hamas released four female Israeli soldier hostages on Saturday in return for about 200 Palestinian prisoners in keeping with a ceasefire agreement aimed at ending the 15-month war in Gaza.
The four were led onto a podium in Gaza City amid a large crowd of Palestinians and surrounded by dozens of armed Hamas men. They waved and smiled before being led off, entering ICRC vehicles and being transported to Israeli forces.
The soldiers — Karina Ariev, Daniella 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 October 7, 2023.
Their parents clapped and cried out in joy when they saw them on screen, watching the handover live from a nearby military base across the border. In Tel Aviv, hundreds of Israelis gathered at the so-called Hostages Square, crying, embracing and cheering as it was aired on a giant screen.
They were then reunited with their families, according to the military, before being taken to a hospital in central Israel, the Israeli Health Ministry said.
But the joy in Israel was clouded by disappointment after the failure to release female civilian hostage Arbel Yehud, 29, who was abducted with her boyfriend from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, on October 7.
An Israeli military spokesperson said it was a breach of the truce, while Hamas said it was a technical issue. A Hamas official said the group had informed mediators that she was alive and will be released next Saturday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Palestinians in Gaza will not be allowed to cross back to the northern part of the territory until the issue is resolved.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had been displaced from northern Gaza during the war and many were expecting to return from Sunday. A Palestinian official told Reuters that the mediators were working on resolving the matter.
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. About 70 are set to be deported, Hamas said.
Buses carrying the prisoners were seen departing from Ofer military prison in the occupied West Bank soon after the Israeli hostages were freed.
Saturday’s planned exchange will be the second since a ceasefire began on January 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 US, has halted fighting for the first time since a truce in November 2023 that lasted just a week.
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 about 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 about a third of them dead in absentia.
Families of hostages who are not included in the first phase are concerned that the ceasefire will break down before it reaches the next stages.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after the 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