KHAN YOUNIS (AP) – Hamas freed eight hostages yesterday in the latest release since a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip took hold earlier this month. Israel was expected to release another 110 Palestinian prisoners.
The release was delayed by a chaotic scene in which a crowd of Palestinians surrounded and jeered at hostages as they were turned over to the Red Cross.
The truce is aimed at winding down the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and Hamas. It has held despite a dispute earlier this week over the sequence in which the hostages were released.
The first hostage, female Israeli soldier Agam Berger, was released in northern Gaza. Hours later, a chaotic scene unfolded as thousands of people pressed around a handover site in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, in front of the destroyed home of slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
Footage showed Arbel Yehoud, a 29-year-old hostage, looking stunned as she was led through the crowd toward waiting Red Cross vehicles.
Hundreds of fighters from Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group arrived with a convoy in a show of force, and thousands of people gathered to watch, some from the tilted rooftops of bombed-out buildings. Many in the crowd shouted and surrounded Yehoud as masked fighters pushed people away and escorted her through.
Red Cross vehicles were then delayed as they tried to drive away. The Israeli army later announced the Red Cross had confirmed it had the freed hostages.
Hamas had earlier handed Berger, 20, to the Red Cross. The Israeli government later release footage of Berger hugging and crying with her parents. The other four were released on Saturday.
People cheered, clapped and whistled at a square in Tel Aviv where supporters of the hostages watched Berger’s handover on big screens next to a large clock that’s counted the days the hostages have been in captivity. Some held signs saying, “Agam we’re waiting for you at home.” The other two Israelis released yesterday are Yehoud and Gadi Moses, an 80-year-old man. Five Thai nationals were freed, but were not been officially identified.
Israel said Yehoud was supposed to have been freed on Saturday and delayed the opening of crossings to northern Gaza when she was not.
The United States (US), Egypt and Qatar, which brokered the ceasefire after a year of tough negotiations, resolved the dispute with an agreement that Yehoud would be released. Another three hostages, all men, are set to be freed on Saturday along with dozens more Palestinian prisoners.
On Monday, Israel began allowing Palestinians to return to northern Gaza, the most heavily destroyed part of the territory, and hundreds of thousands streamed back. Many found only mounds of rubble where their homes had been.
CEASEFIRE HOLDS FOR NOW BUT NEXT PHASE WILL BE HARDER
In the first phase of the ceasefire, Hamas is set to release a total of 33 Israeli hostages, including women, children, older adults and sick or wounded men, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Israel said Hamas has confirmed that eight of the hostages to be released in this phase are dead.
Palestinians have cheered the release of the prisoners, who they widely see as heroes who have sacrificed for the cause of ending Israel’s decades-long occupation of lands they want for a future state.
Israeli forces have meanwhile pulled back from most of Gaza, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to return to what remains of their homes and humanitarian groups to surge assistance.
The deal calls for Israel and Hamas to negotiate a second phase in which Hamas would release the remaining hostages and the ceasefire would continue indefinitely. The war could resume in early March if an agreement is not reached.
Israel said it is still committed to destroying Hamas, even after the group reasserted its rule over Gaza within hours of the truce.
A key far-right partner in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is already calling for the war to resume after the ceasefire’s first phase.
Hamas said it won’t release the remaining hostages without an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
TENS OF THOUSANDS KILLED
Israel’s air and ground war among the deadliest and most destructive in decades. More than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed, over half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were fighters.
The Israeli military said it killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence, and that it went to great lengths to try to spare civilians.
It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because its fighters operate in dense residential neighbourhoods and put military infrastructure near homes, schools and mosques.
The Israeli offensive has transformed entire neighbourhoods into mounds of grey rubble, and it’s unclear how or when anything will be rebuilt.
Around 90 per cent of Gaza’s population has been displaced, often multiple times, with hundreds of thousands of people living in squalid tent camps or shuttered schools.
