KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip: Hamas released 13 Israelis and four foreigners late Saturday in the second round of swaps under a cease-fire deal, the Israeli military said, after the militant group initially delayed the exchange for several hours and claimed that Israel had violated the terms of a truce deal.
Shortly after midnight, the Israeli military said the released hostages, including four Thais, had been transferred to Israel. They were being taken to hospitals for observation and to be reunited with their families.
Israel was to free 39 Palestinians later Saturday as part of the deal that ultimately went through after international mediation efforts.
The Israeli hostages released Saturday by Hamas included seven children and six women, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced. Most of the released hostages were from Kibbutz Be’eri, a community Hamas militants ravaged during their Oct. 7 cross-border attack, a spokesperson for the kibbutz said. The children ranged in age from 3 to 16, and the women ranged from 18 to 67.
It was a bittersweet moment for the residents of Be’eri. A kibbutz spokesperson said all the released hostages either had a family member killed in the Oct. 7 rampage or had left a loved one in captivity in Gaza.
The mother of one of the released hostages, 12-year-old Hila Rotem, remained in captivity, the spokesperson said.
Another, Emily Hand, is a girl whose father believed her to be dead for weeks before finding out she was held as a hostage.
The last-minute delay had created a tense standoff on the second day of what’s meant to be a four-day cease-fire. By nightfall, as the hostages should have emerged from Gaza, Hamas alleged that the aid deliveries permitted by Israel fell short of what was promised and that not enough of it was reaching northern Gaza — the focus of Israel’s ground offensive and main combat zone. Hamas also said not enough veteran prisoners were freed in the first swap on Friday.
“This is putting the deal in danger,” Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official, said in Beirut. But Egypt, Qatar and Hamas itself later said obstacles had been overcome, and Hamas listed six women and 33 teenage boys it said were expected to be released by the Israelis. Two women, Maysoun Jabali and Israa Jaabis, were imprisoned in 2015 after being convicted of carrying out attacks on Israelis. Jaabis suffered severe burns during the incident.
While uncertainty around some details of the exchange remained, there was some optimism, too, amid earlier scenes of joyous families reuniting on both sides.
On the first day of the cease-fire, Hamas released 24 of the roughly 240 hostages taken during its Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war, and Israel freed 39 Palestinians from prison. Those freed in Gaza were 13 Israelis, 10 Thais and a Filipino.
Overall, Hamas is to release at least 50 Israeli hostages, and Israel 150 Palestinian prisoners, during the four-day truce — all women and minors.
Israel has said the truce can be extended an extra day for every additional 10 hostages freed — something US President Joe Biden said he hoped would occur.
Separately, a Qatari delegation arrived in Israel on Saturday to coordinate with parties on the ground and “ensure the deal continues to move smoothly,” according to a diplomat briefed on the visit. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss details with the media.
The start of the pause brought quiet for 2.3 million Palestinians reeling from relentless Israeli bombardment that has killed thousands, driven three-quarters of the population from their homes and leveled residential areas. Rocket fire from Gaza militants into Israel also went silent.
War-weary Palestinians in northern Gaza returned to the streets, crunching over rubble between shattered buildings and at times digging through it with bare hands. At the Indonesian hospital in Jabaliya, besieged by the Israeli military earlier this month, bodies lay in the courtyard and outside the main gate.
For Emad Abu Hajjer, a resident of the Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza City area, the pause meant he could again search through the remains of his home, which was flattened in an Israeli attack last week.
He found the bodies of a cousin and nephew, bringing the death toll in the attack to 19. His sister and two other relatives are still missing.
“We want to find them and bury them in dignity,” he said.
The United Nations said the pause enabled it to scale up the delivery of food, water, and medicine to the largest volume since the resumption of aid convoys on Oct. 21. It was also able to deliver 129,000 liters (34,078 gallons) of fuel — just over 10 percent of the daily pre-war volume — as well as cooking gas, a first since the war began.
In the southern city of Khan Younis, a long line of people with containers waited outside a filling station. Hossam Fayad lamented that the pause in fighting was only for four days.
“I wish it could be extended until people’s conditions improved,” he said.
For the first time in over a month, aid reached northern Gaza. The Palestinian Red Crescent said 61 trucks carrying food, water and medical supplies headed there on Saturday, the largest aid convoy to reach the area yet. The UN said it and the Palestinian Red Crescent were also able to evacuate 40 patients and family members from a hospital in Gaza City to a hospital in Khan Younis.
JOY AND EXPECTATION
In Tel Aviv, several thousand people packed a central square called “the square of the hostages,” awaiting news of the second release.
“Don’t forget the others because it’s getting harder, harder and harder. It’s heartbreaking,” said Neri Gershon, a Tel Aviv resident. Some families have accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of not doing enough to bring hostages home.
In the Balata refugee camp in the West Bank, the family of 16-year-old Wael Mesheh was frantically getting the house ready for his homecoming as part of the second swap. “We are going to hug him so tight,” his mother, Hanadi Mesheh, said by phone.
The first group of freed Israelis included nine women and four children ages 9 and under. They were taken to Israeli hospitals for observation and were declared to be in good condition.
Hours later, 24 Palestinian women and 15 teenage boys held in Israeli prisons in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem were freed. The teenagers had been jailed for minor offenses like throwing stones. The women included several convicted of trying to stab Israeli soldiers.
“It’s a happiness tainted with sorrow because our release from prison came at the cost of the lives of martyrs and the innocence of children,” said one released prisoner, Aseel Munir Al-Titi.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, an advocacy group, Israel is holding 7,200 Palestinians, including about 2,000 arrested since the start of the war.
On Saturday, at least two Palestinians were injured at a tense West Bank checkpoint where Israel was to free prisoners. Israeli security forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets at Palestinians gathered at Beitunia checkpoint. It was not clear how the two were injured.
A LONGER PEACE?
The war erupted when several thousand Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking scores of hostages, including babies, women and older adults, as well as soldiers.
“We will return immediately at the end of the cease-fire to attacking in Gaza, operating in Gaza,” Herzi Halevi, Israeli chief of staff, told soldiers.
Israeli leaders have said they won’t stop until Hamas, which has controlled Gaza for the past 16 years, is crushed. Israeli officials have argued that only military pressure can bring the hostages home. But the government is under pressure from hostages’ families to prioritize the release of the remaining captives.
The Israeli offensive has killed more than 13,300 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza government. Women and minors have consistently made up around two-thirds of the dead. The figure does not include updated numbers from hospitals in the north, where communications have broken down.