Hamas activists have released eight hostages on Thursday in the latest version since a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip settled earlier this month. Israel was to release 110 other Palestinian prisoners.
The liberation was delayed by a chaotic scene in which a crowd of Palestinians surrounded and laughed at the hostages when they were returned to the Red Cross.
The truce aims to liquidate the deadliest and most destructive conflict ever fought between Israel and Hamas, whose attack on October 7, 2023 in Israel triggered the fighting. It took place despite a dispute earlier this week on the sequence in which the hostages were published.
The first hostage, the Israeli soldier Agam Berger, was released in northern Gaza. A few hours later, a chaotic scene took place when thousands of people crowded around a transfer site in the southern city of Gaza in Khan Younis, in front of the destroyed house of the chief of Hamas killed Yahya Sinwar.
Images have shown that Arbbel Yehoud, a 29-year-old hostage, looked amazed when she was led by the crowd by activists to vehicles of the Red Cross.
Hundreds of Hamas activists and the small Islamic jihad group arrived with a convoy in a show of strength, and thousands of people gathered to look, some of the tilted roofs of bombed buildings. Many in the crowd shouted and surrounded Yehoud while masked activists pushed people and escorted her.
The vehicles of the Red Cross were then delayed while they were trying to leave. The Israeli army later said that hostages were in Israel.
The other two Israelis released Thursday were Yehoud and Gadi Moses, an 80 -year -old man. Five Thai nationals were released, but were not officially identified.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the “shocking” “scene and called on international mediators to prevent similar events in the future.
Hamas had previously given to Berger, 20, to the Red Cross after parading it in front of a crowd in the highly destroyed urban refugee camp in Jabaliya in northern Gaza. The Israeli government later published images of a hugging shepherd and crying with his parents.
Berger was one of the five young soldiers kidnapped during the October 7 attack. The other four was released on Saturday.
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People have applauded, applauded and whistled on a square of Tel Aviv where the hostage supporters watched shepherd of shepherd on large screens next to a large clock that counted the days when the hostages were in captivity. Some had signs saying: “Agam we are waiting for you at home.”
A number of foreign workers have been caught in captivity with dozens of Israeli civilians and soldiers during the Hamas attack. Twenty-three Thai people were among more than 100 hostages released during a week-long ceasefire in November 2023. Israel said that eight Thai people remain in captivity, two of which are dead.
Among the people who should be released from prisons in Israel, 30 people are serving perpetuity sentences after being found guilty of fatal attacks against the Israelis. Zakaria Zubeidi, a former militant chief and theater director who participated in a dramatic jailbreak in 2021 before being rearranged a few days later, is also among those taking place.
Israel said Yehoud was released on Saturday and had delayed the opening of crossings to Northern Gaza when it was not.
The United States, Egypt and Qatar, which negotiated the ceasefire after a year of difficult negotiations, resolved the dispute with an agreement that Yehoud would be released on Thursday. Three other hostages, all men, should be released on Saturday with dozens of other Palestinian prisoners.
On Monday, Israel began to allow the Palestinians to return to the north of Gaza, the most strongly destroyed part of the territory, and hundreds of thousands sank. Many have only found Monticles of rubble where their houses were.
The ceasefire is coming for the moment but the next phase will be more difficult
In the first phase of the ceasefire, Hamas is expected to release a total of 33 Israeli hostages, including women, children, the elderly and sick or injured men, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Israel says Hamas has confirmed that eight of the hostages to be released in this phase died.
The Palestinians applauded the liberation of prisoners, which they largely consider as heroes who sacrificed for the cause of the end of the land occupation of the decades of Israel that they want for a future state.
Israeli forces have withdrawn from most Gaza, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to return to what remains of their humanitarian homes and groups to increase aid.
The agreement calls on Israel and Hamas to negotiate a second phase in which Hamas would release the remaining hostages and the cease-fire would continue indefinitely. The conflict could resume in early March if an agreement is not concluded.
Israel says that he is still determined to destroy Hamas, even after the militant group reaffirmed his Gaza rule in the hours after the truce. A far-right partner of the Coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu already calls the conflict to take up after the first phase of the ceasefire.
Hamas says that it will not release the remaining self -sufficient hostages to the conflict and a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Hamas began the conflict when he sent thousands of assault fighters to Israel. The activists killed some 1,200 people, mainly civilians and removed around 250.
The air and terrestrial conflict that followed by Israel between the deadliest and most destructive decades. More than 47,000 Palestinians were killed, more than half of them, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, which does not say how many deaths were militants.
The Israeli army says that it killed more than 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence, and that it has made great efforts to try to save civilians. He blamed the civilian deaths of Hamas because his fighters operate in dense residential neighborhoods and put military infrastructure near houses, schools and mosques.
The Israeli offensive has transformed whole districts into mounds of gray rubble, and we do not know how or when everything is rebuilt. About 90% of the Gaza population has been moved, often several times, with hundreds of thousands of people living in sordid tents or closed schools.
Shurafa reported Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip and Krauss from Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. The writer Associated Press Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel contributed.
