NUSEIRAT: Palestinian militants on Saturday freed five Israeli hostages, among the last living captives to be released under the first phase of a fragile truce that is also expected to see Palestinian prisoners released.
Freedom for the captives caps an emotional two days in Israel, where the family of another hostage, Shiri Bibas, earlier on Saturday confirmed receipt of her remains.
Advertisement (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Bibas and her two young sons had become symbols of the ordeal suffered by Israeli hostages since the Gaza war began.
Palestinian militants seized dozens of captives during their unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered more than 15 months of war in the Gaza Strip.
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They waved while holding release certificates before their handover to the Red Cross, who took them away in a convoy after more than 16 months of captivity, an AFP correspondent said.
Advertisement (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});The military said they later were back home on Israeli soil.
At a similar ceremony earlier Saturday in Rafah, southern Gaza, militants handed over Tal Shoham, 40, and Avera Mengistu, 38, who both appeared dazed.
Advertisement (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});Shoham was made to address the gathering, flanked by armed and masked fighters dressed all in black.
In the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, hundreds who gathered at a site known as ‘Hostages Square’ applauded and some appeared to weep as they watched the releases.
Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum had published the names of six Israelis to be freed on Saturday. Among them, it listed Hisham al-Sayed,37.
Sayed, a Bedouin Muslim, and Mengistu, an Ethiopian Jew, were captured in Gaza around a decade ago after they entered the territory individually on their own accord.
A Hamas source had said the group would free four captives in Nuseirat but the details of Sayed’s expected release were not immediately clear.
“Our family has endured 10 years and five months of unimaginable suffering”, Mengistu’s family said in a statement.
Relatives of Shoham wept and embraced as they watched his handover, video released by Israel’s government showed.
“We saw that Tal seems well considering the circumstances. An enormous weight is lifted from us,” the family of the Austrian-Israeli dual national said in a statement.
The releases came under the first phase of a ceasefire deal which began on January 19 and is due to expire in early March.
At both locations the militants had prepared for a now well-practised ceremony, with stages in front of large posters promoting the militants’ cause or praising fallen fighters.
The Red Cross has repeatedly appealed for handovers to take place in a dignified manner.
On Thursday the first transfer of hostages’ bodies took place under the truce.
Hamas had said Shiri Bibas’s remains were among the four bodies returned but Israeli analysis concluded they were not in fact hers, sparking grief and anger.
Hamas then admitted a possible “mix-up of bodies”, which it attributed to Israeli bombing of the area.
