At the time set yesterday for the release of the first Israeli hostages, there was calm and hope on the esplanade in front of the Tel-Aviv Art Museum. The activities that have been carried out every day since the space was installed after the terrorist attack by Hamas continue, but there are many more people and more journalists than usual. Yellow ribbons are distributed, drawings are made or posters are handed out with stuffed animals that remember the nearly 40 abducted children or the long table set with tablecloths, glasses, plates and bottles of wine waiting for the 240 abductees to eat.
Suddenly, a commotion signals the arrival of Benny Gantz, the center-left leader of the opposition and a member of the war cabinet created by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the October 7 terrorist attack. Gantz greets relatives of the hostages, volunteers and citizens who have also come to follow the liberation.
“I love him!” says Hanna, a young woman who assures that Gantz will be the next prime minister because “no one wants Netanyahu anymore”. Her boyfriend, Daniel, a plainclothes reservist with an assault rifle around his neck, also thinks Netanyahu is done. I ask them what the phrase written in Hebrew on a large white cloth on the floor says. “We are all part of the same human fabric,” says Hanna. “Does the banner also refer to the Palestinians?” I ask naively. “Of course not!”, replies the young woman, a little angry.
As planned, Hamas released yesterday the first thirteen hostages of the group of 50 women and children agreed in Tuesday’s agreement with Israel. What was not announced was that the Islamist organization also released ten Thai workers and one Filipino. The abductees were handed over by Hamas to the Red Cross at an undisclosed location in the south of the strip – probably in Khan Iunis – amid a crowd of Gazans, and taken to the Rafah crossing on the border with Egypt There, the freed people underwent an initial medical examination in ambulances and crossed the border line to be taken through Egyptian territory to the Kerem Shalom crossing, on the border between Gaza, Egypt and Israel, where they entered Israeli territory and were under the custody of the army’s special forces and underwent a more thorough medical examination. They later flew by helicopter to different hospitals, where they were reunited with their families.
Among the first to be freed are only four children, aged between 2 and 9, although their three mothers – one was kidnapped along with her two small children – were also released. The other six are old women, aged 72 and 85, one of them the grandmother of one of the children who left their captivity behind. With the release of three family groups, Hamas also fulfilled its promise not to release children without their mothers, and vice versa. Some of the hostages could be seen live thanks to the images of the Egyptian television channel Al-Qahera, which transmitted from the Rafah crossing, where the hostages were seen getting out of ambulances. Hamas later released a video showing the hostages being transferred from cars to Red Cross vehicles.
All of the freed Israeli abductees are women and minors and can already be subtracted from the 240 people kidnapped on October 7, of which 210 were held by Hamas and about 30 by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. According to the agreement, the four-day truce that began in the early hours of yesterday must allow 12 or 13 more Israeli hostages to leave their captivity during the following three days, until the 50 agreed upon are completed.
At the same time, Israel released 39 Palestinian prisoners – women and teenagers with no blood crimes – who were imprisoned in Ofer prison, north of Jerusalem, in the occupied West Bank. These 39 are the first of the 150 prisoners that the Israeli justice has released by order of the Government and that will also be freed for the next three days, including today, when yesterday’s exchange is expected to be repeated, if anything it doesn’t twist. The Palestinian prisoners released yesterday are 24 women and 15 minors. Hundreds of West Bank citizens took to the streets of Ramallah and other cities in these occupied territories to celebrate their freedom.
The agreement between Israel and Hamas is for a four-day ceasefire, but it could be extended to ten days if the two sides decide to continue exchanging hostages for prisoners in the same proportion. In this sense, Qatar, where the leaders of Hamas live and which acts as a mediator between the parties with the collaboration of Egypt and the US, has reiterated that it is trying not only to have the releases continue, but to establish a definitive ceasefire. In this sense, the head of diplomacy of the European Union, Josep Borrell, also spoke out yesterday, in a statement, in favor of the truce “extending for a longer period”.
Once the hostages were safely in Israeli territory, Netanyahu made a statement celebrating the release. “We have completed the return of the first of our abductees. Children, their mothers and other women. Each and every one of them is a whole world”, said the Prime Minister. “I insist to the families and to you, citizens of Israel: we are committed to the return of all our abductees,” he added.
For his part, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, also welcomed the release and stated that he expects “more hostages to be released tomorrow” – for today – as part of the agreement. Biden added that this “pause is an opportunity to bring aid to Gaza.”
The release of the kidnapped took place shortly after the appointed time, four in the afternoon (one hour less in Barcelona). Earlier, at 7 a.m. (local time), the agreed ceasefire that would allow the hostages to be handed over had begun. The Israeli bombardment continued until almost that hour, when it ceased. However, according to the AP agency, Israeli soldiers killed two Gazans and wounded several others who were trying to enter an evacuated war zone from the north. According to the army, Hamas called on the citizens of Gaza displaced from the north to return to their homes taking advantage of the truce, despite the fact that the Israeli air force dropped leaflets on the population to prevent them from going anywhere to the north
Meanwhile, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said shortly before the release of the hostages that he would honor the deal as long as Israel did as well. “Israel thought it could free the prisoners through unprecedented slaughter and destruction and said it would not accept a ceasefire,” Haniyeh said, making a face. “After almost 50 days and as a result of the struggle and resistance of the people on all fronts, we managed to agree on a truce on the terms established by Hamas and the resistance factions”, affirmed the leader of Hamas from Doha .
The agreement for the ceasefire and the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners also includes the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Yesterday, the UN confirmed the entry into the Rafah strip of 137 trucks with supplies and food, as well as 129,000 liters of fuel, much more than any day before the truce.
