Four Israeli soldiers were released on Saturday after more than 15 months of captivity in the Gaza Strip, but Israel demanded the release of another hostage before allowing the planned return of displaced people to the north of the Palestinian territory.
The four soldiers were first handed over to the Red Cross which transferred them to the Israeli army, as part of a new exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners. According to the army, they found “their parents” shortly after their arrival on Israeli territory.
Israel must release 200 Palestinians held in its prisons today, according to Palestinian sources, in accordance with the truce agreement in the war-devastated Gaza Strip.
Before getting into the Red Cross vehicles in Gaza, the four hostages were presented on a podium installed in a square in Gaza City, in the middle of a compact crowd flanked by fighters in fatigues and hooded Brigades Ezzedine al-Qassam, military branch of Hamas, and the al-Quds Brigades, armed wing of Islamic Jihad, according to an AFP journalist.
Smiling, the young soldiers in khaki uniforms, who appeared to be in good health, briefly greeted the crowd before getting off the stage and getting into white 4X4s.
Aged 19 to 20, Daniella Gilboa, Karina Ariev, Liri Albag and Naama Levy were carrying out their military service, assigned to surveillance of the Gaza Strip when they were kidnapped on October 7, 2023 during the attack by Hamas commandos in the south of the country.
They were released almost a week after the entry into force of a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip after more than 15 months of war between Hamas and Israel, which plunged the small Palestinian territory in a serious humanitarian crisis.
According to the agreement, immediately after the release of the four new hostages, “people displaced in the south of the Gaza Strip will begin to return to the north”, Bassem Naïm, member of the political bureau of the Gaza Strip, told AFP on Friday. Hamas based in Doha.
But on Saturday, Israel made the return of displaced Palestinians conditional on the release of a civilian hostage, Arbel Yehud, who was supposed to be released on Saturday, according to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Two Palestinian leaders assured AFP that the hostage was “alive and in good health”.
Shouts of joy in Tel Aviv
In Tel Aviv, on the “Hostages Square”, relatives and sympathizers of the four soldiers uttered cries of joy, some were moved to tears as they followed the release of the hostages live.
“Bring them home now, everyone!” “, said some in the crowd, triggering waves of applause.
Among the 200 Palestinians who are to be released today by Israel, some will be returned to Gaza and others to the occupied West Bank. Their buses left Ofer prison, in the occupied West Bank, and Ktziot prison, in the Negev desert, on Saturday, according to AFP journalists.
-The list includes 120 sentenced to life imprisonment, 70 of whom must be exiled outside the Palestinian Territories, said a Palestinian source.
Among them is Mohammed Tous, the Palestinian detained the longest continuously by Israel, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club. Aged 69, this member of Fatah, the movement founded by Yasser Arafat, historic leader of the Palestinians, has been imprisoned since 1985.
33 hostages against 1,900 detainees
This new exchange of hostage prisoners takes place within the framework of the truce which came into force on Sunday and the first phase of which should last six weeks and allow the release of 33 hostages in exchange for some 1,900 Palestinian prisoners.
After the release of three young Israeli hostages in Gaza on January 19, in exchange for that of 90 Palestinians, mostly women and minors, at the end of this exchange there will remain 26 Israeli hostages who can be released during the first phase of the agreement. .
All the names were communicated but without chronological order of release, plunging the families of the hostages into unbearable doubt.
The Israeli army said on Saturday that it was very concerned about the “fate” of the last two child hostages in the Gaza Strip, Kfir and Ariel Bibas, aged 2 and 5, kidnapped with their mother on October 7.
During the first phase of the truce, the modalities of the second will be negotiated, which should allow the release of the last hostages, before the last stage relating to the reconstruction of Gaza and the restitution of the bodies of the hostages who died in captivity.
The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people on the Israeli side, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data. Of the 251 people kidnapped, 87 are still in Gaza, including 34 dead according to the army.
Others were announced dead by Hamas but without Israeli confirmation.
In retaliation for October 7, Israel launched an offensive in the besieged Gaza Strip, which left at least 47,283 dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas Health Ministry.
The truce has generally been respected since Sunday, apart from a few incidents. In less than a week, it allowed the entry of several thousand humanitarian aid trucks into the small territory.
