An American mother and her teenage daughter who were being held hostage by Hamas have been released.
Judith Raanan and her 17-year-old daughter Natalie are out of the Gaza Strip and in the hands of the Israeli military, an army spokesman said on Friday night. Hamas said it had released them for humanitarian reasons in an agreement with the Qatari government.
Judith and Natalie Ranaan had been on a trip from their home in suburban Chicago to Israel to celebrate the Jewish holidays, their family said.
They were in the kibbutz of Nahal Oz, near Gaza, on 7 October - Simchat Torah, a festive Jewish holiday - when Hamas fighters stormed out of the territory into southern Israeli towns.
The family heard nothing from them after the attack and were later told by US and Israeli officials that they were being held in Gaza, Natalie’s brother Ben said.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian humanitarian organisation says it has been warned by Israeli forces to evacuate a hospital in Gaza ‘immediately’. The Al Quds hospital currently has more than 400 patients and 12,000 displaced Gazans, while the claims have not been confirmed by the Israeli military.