The Palestinian militant group Hamas handed four female Israeli soldier hostages over to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Saturday.
The four were led onto a podium in Gaza City amid a large crowd of Palestinians and surrounded by dozens of armed members of Hamas. The women waved and smiled before being led off, entering ICRC vehicles that transported them to Israeli forces.
The Israeli military said it had received the four in Gaza. They were being released in exchange for 200 Palestinian prisoners under a ceasefire agreement aimed at ending the 15-month-old war in Gaza.
The four soldiers — Karina Ariev, Daniela Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag — were all stationed at an observation post on the edge of Gaza and abducted by Hamas fighters who overran their base during the attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Video of their abduction aired in May and showed the five conscripts, pajama-clad and stunned and some bloodied, being bound and bundled into a jeep. The footage was recovered from bodycams worn by gunmen who attacked the Nahal Oz base in southern Israel where the women served as surveillance spotters.
After being reunited with their family at an Israeli military base near the Gaza border, the released hostages will be taken to a hospital in central Israel, the Israeli Health Ministry said.
Hamas said 200 prisoners will be freed on Saturday as part of the exchange. They include members of Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), some serving life sentences.
Around 70 will be deported, Hamas said. A Palestinian official close to the talks told Reuters that some of the freed prisoners will be released into Egypt. Some of those will stay in Egypt while others may go on to Algeria, Qatar or Turkey.
Saturday’s exchange would be the second since the ceasefire began last Sunday and Hamas handed over three Israeli civilians in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners.
Emily Damari, 28, Doron Steinbrecher, 31, and Romi Gonen, 24, were the first three Israeli hostages released from Gaza on Sunday. Gonen was abducted from the Nova music festival, while the others were kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza.
The ceasefire agreement, worked out after months of on-off negotiations brokered by Qatar and Egypt and backed by the United States, has halted the fighting for the first time since a truce that lasted just a week in November 2023.
Hamas not following release plan, Israel says
After Saturday’s release, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a post on X that Hamas has not abided with the ceasefire agreement to release Israeli civilians first. Israel had been expecting the release of Arbel Yehoud, one of the civilians held hostage, on Saturday.
Israel won’t allow Palestinians to cross into northern Gaza until Yehoud is released, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
“We are determined to return Arbel Yehoud, an Israeli citizen kidnapped from Nir Oz (kibbutz), and also Shiri Bibas and her two children, Kfir and Ariel, whose welfare we are extremely concerned about,” Israel’s military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said.
In the first six-week phase of the deal, Hamas has agreed to release 33 hostages, including children, women, older men and the sick and injured, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, while Israeli troops pull back from some of their positions in the Gaza Strip.
In a subsequent phase, the two sides would negotiate the exchange of the remaining hostages, including men of military age, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, which lies largely in ruins after 15 months of fighting and Israeli bombardment.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, when militants killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, more than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to health authorities there.
After the release last Sunday of hostages Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher and the recovery of the body of an Israeli soldier missing for a decade, Israel says 94 Israelis and foreigners remain held in Gaza, though it is unclear how many of them are still alive.
