LAST UPDATE | 25 Nov 2023
A TOTAL OF 13 Israeli hostages are to be freed “tonight” for 39 Palestinian prisoners, in a delayed second exchange agreed as part of a temporary truce in Gaza, mediator Qatar said Saturday.
Seven foreigners held in Gaza will also be released, it added.
“After a delay, obstacles to release of prisoners were overcome through Qatari-Egyptian contacts with both sides, and 39 Palestinian civilians will be released tonight, while 13 Israeli hostages will leave Gaza in addition to 7 foreigners,” foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Earlier, Hamas said it was delaying the release of a second group of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners until Israel complies with a truce agreement.
The entry of humanitarian aid to the north of the Gaza Strip and the selection criteria for the liberation of prisoners were the issues in question, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement.
The group of hostages seized in the Hamas attacks on southern Israel on 7 October was due to be handed over on the second day of a four-day truce agreement between Israel and the Islamist movement, with Palestinian prisoners being released in exchange at a ration of three to one.
An Israeli official said the hostages had not yet been handed over to the Red Cross.
“Israel has not violated the agreement,” an Israeli source told AFP.
Israeli authorities earlier said that 14 hostages held by Hamas will be released today, as well as 42 Palestinian prisoners, on the second day of a truce deal.
Prison authorities said 42 prisoners – both male and female – would be freed under the terms of the agreement, which mandates exchanges at a ratio of three to one, and an Israeli official source said 14 hostages would be handed over.
The first prisoner exchange took place yesterday, where 13 Israeli citizens, 10 Thai citizens and a Filipino citizen were freed by Hamas. Israel also freed 39 Palestinian women and children from its prisons.
Israeli authorities said they had received a list of the hostages to be freed but did not provide numbers or the precise timing. According to key mediator Qatar and an official Israeli list Hamas released four children and six elderly women yesterday.
A two-minute video released by Hamas showed masked militants with rifles, wearing military fatigues and the green headband of its armed wing, as they handed the hostages over to Red Cross officials
Israel in turn freed 39 women and children from its prisons.
“It’s only a start, but so far it’s gone well,” US President Joe Biden told reporters in Massachusetts, where he was spending the Thanksgiving holiday.
“I think the chances are real” for extending the truce, he said.
Biden also urged a broader effort to emerge from the crisis with a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel.
The ceasefire has also been able to deliver 34,078 gallons of fuel – just over 10% of the daily pre-war volume – as well as cooking gas.
In the southern city of Khan Younis this morning, a long line of people with fuel cans and other containers waited outside a filling station hoping to get some of the newly delivered fuel.
For the first time in more than a month, aid reached northern Gaza, the focus of Israel’s ground offensive. A UN convoy delivered flour to two facilities sheltering people displaced by fighting.
The UN said it and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society were also able to evacuate 40 patients and family members from a hospital in Gaza City, where much of the fighting has taken place, to a hospital in Khan Younis.
Remaining hostages
About 215 hostages remain in Gaza, Israeli army spokesman Doron Spielman said.
“We’re unaware, many of these cases, if they are dead or alive. We’re trying to collect intelligence,” he said.
Hamas fighters snatched the captives when they broke through Gaza’s militarised border with Israel on 7 October, killing about 1,200 people, according to Israeli figures.
In response to the deadliest attack in its history, Israel launched an air, artillery and naval offensive to destroy Hamas, killing about 15,000 people, according to the Hamas government in Gaza.
Hamas is an Islamic militant group who are deemed a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US and the EU, among other powers. It has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007 after winning the 2006 Palestinian elections and taking power by force.
The health ministry in Gaza says Israel’s relentless assault has killed around 15,000 people, also mostly civilians, including thousands of children – Hamas says it tallies these figures from hospital directors, and they are generally used by international news outlets despite an inability to independently verify them because foreign media and observers have been unable to access the Gaza Strip since the conflict began.
Hamas is expected to free 50 hostages during the ceasefire in exchange for 150 Palestinian prisoners, part of an agreement struck after talks involving Israel, Palestinian militant groups, Qatar, Egypt and the United States.
- © AFP 2023, with reporting by Muiris O’Cearbhaill and Press Association.
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