Seventeen hostages, including 13 Israelis, who were held for weeks in the Gaza Strip, were released on Saturday evening by the Palestinian extremist movement Hamas. The group has arrived in Israel, the Israeli army confirms.
The Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, announced that they had handed over 13 Israeli hostages and 4 foreigners to the International Red Cross (ICRC) shortly before midnight. Originally there were 20 hostages.
Footage from Egyptian television showed the convoy carrying the hostages entering Egypt through the Rafah border crossing in the south of the Gaza Strip. Israel later reported that they had arrived in Israel. Four Thai hostages, who were not part of the deal, were also released, Egypt said.
According to the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is mediating the prisoner exchange, the 13 released Israeli hostages include 8 children and 5 women. Among them are single children and families from Kibbutz Be’eri and a young woman of 21 who was taken from a music festival on October 7.
In return, Israel released 39 Palestinian prisoners, Israeli prison authorities said. According to Hamas, the victims are six women and 33 young men under the age of 19.
Television footage showed the prisoners being welcomed into Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem. The most famous among them is 38-year-old Israa Jaabis, who was jailed for 11 years in 2015 after detonating a gas cylinder in her car at a checkpoint. A police officer was injured.
On Friday, 24 hostages were freed from Gaza, including 13 Israelis. The truce between Hamas and Israel would last four days and a total of 50 Israelis and 150 Palestinians must be released.
