Palestinians flee to northern Gaza on Friday as Israeli tanks block the Salah al-Din road in the central Gaza Strip. The four-day cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war began as part of an agreement that Qatar helped broker.
AP Photo/Mohammed Dahman
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Hamas on Friday released 24 hostages who had been held captive in Gaza for weeks, including 13 Israelis, 10 people from Thailand and a Filipino citizen, according to Qatar and other officials, in the first stage in a swap for Palestinians prisoners in Israel under a four-day cease-fire deal.
The hostages, women and children, were soon returned to Israel, where Israeli officials said they underwent medical checkups. They were to be accompanied by soldiers to hospitals to be reunited with their families.
Qatar was a key mediator in the hostage release. The International Committee of the Red Cross delivered the hostages from Gaza into Egypt.
The agreement brought the first respite for beleaguered residents of Gaza and opened the way for sorely needed aid to flow in. It was also a moment of hope for families in Israel and elsewhere worried about loved ones taken captive during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, which triggered the war.
There were no reports of fighting in the hours after the truce began. Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians saw quiet after seven weeks of relentless Israeli bombardment, which has killed thousands, flattened vast swaths of the territory and driven three-quarters of the population from their homes. Rocket fire from Gaza militants into Israel went silent as well.
The release of the first Israeli hostages was to be followed in the evening by the freeing of 39 Palestinian prisoners — 24 women, including some convicted of attempted murder for attacks on Israeli forces, and 15 teenagers jailed for offenses like throwing stones.
The truce raised hopes of eventually winding down the conflict, which has fueled a surge of violence in the occupied West Bank and stirred fears of a wider conflagration across the Middle East.
Israel, however, has said it is determined to resume its massive offensive once the cease-fire ends.
First hostages freed
Israeli media reports, citing security officials, said Hamas had handed over the group of 13 Israelis to the Red Cross, to be transported to Egypt.
The plight of around 240 people taken captive during Hamas’ attack has been wrenching in Israel, raising anger among some families that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not doing enough to bring them home.
Under the deal, at least 50 are to be released — bringing relief but also bitterness that not all will be freed. It was not clear if the Thai captives were included that figure. Israel is to free 150 Palestinian prisoners.
Ahead of Friday evening’s release, thousands of Israelis gathered in what has been dubbed “Hostages Square” in Tel Aviv, singing songs to welcome the Jewish Sabbath.
Cease-fire
Palestinians say a longer cease-fire is needed to recover from the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. But Friday’s halt in fighting brought the uprooted population a moment to catch their breath after weeks of fleeing bombardment across the tiny coastal enclave and trying to find increasingly scarce food, water and other basic supplies.
After the truce began Friday morning, an increased flow of aid promised under the deal began. Four trucks of fuel and four trucks of cooking gas entered from Egypt, as well as 200 trucks of relief supplies, Israel said.
Since the war began, Israel barred all imports into Gaza, except for a trickle of supplies from Egypt.
Its ban on fuel — which it said could be diverted to Hamas — caused a territory-wide blackout. Hospitals, water systems, bakeries and shelters have struggled to keep generators running. Amid food shortages, U.N. officials had warned in recent weeks of the potential for starvation.
Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are crowded into the southern portion of the territory, with more than 1 million living in U.N. schools-turned-shelters.
For those originally from the south, the calm brought a chance to visit homes they had fled and retrieve some belongings.
To the hundreds of thousands who evacuated from northern Gaza to the south, Israel issued a warning not to return. Northern Gaza has been the focus on Israel’s ground assault.
In leaflets dropped around the south, the Israeli military said it would block such attempts, saying the “the war has not ended yet.”
Still, hundreds of Palestinians could be seen walking north Friday.
Two were shot and killed by Israeli troops and another 11 were wounded. An Associated Press journalist saw the two bodies and the wounded as they arrived at a hospital.
Sofian Abu Amer, who had fled Gaza City, said he decided to risk heading north to check on his home.
“We don’t have enough clothes, food and drinks,” he said. “The situation is disastrous. It’s better for a person to die.”
Hostages for prisoners
In the exchange deal, Israel and Hamas agreed to release women and children first. Israel said the four-day truce can be extended an extra day for every additional 10 hostages freed.
Among the Israelis freed are some who have a second nationality, according to a Hamas official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the details with the media.
A number of soldiers are among the hostages held by militants in Gaza. The Islamic Jihad militant group, which is reportedly holding about 40 captives, said soldiers will only be released in exchange for all Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, an advocacy group, Israel is currently holding 7,200 Palestinians on security charges or convictions, including about 2,000 arrested since the start of the war.
Israel’s northern border with Lebanon was also quiet on Friday, a day after the militant Hezbollah group, an ally of Hamas, carried out the highest number of attacks in one day since fighting there began Oct. 8.
Hezbollah is not a party to the cease-fire agreement but was widely expected to halt its attacks.
The war erupted when several thousand Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel, killing at least 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking scores of hostages, including babies, women and older adults, as well as soldiers.
A longer peace?
The hope is that “momentum” from the deal will lead to an “end to this violence,” said Majed al-Ansari, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of Qatar, which served as a mediator along with the United States and Egypt.
But hours before it came into effect, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told troops that their respite would be short and that the war would resume with intensity for at least two more months.
