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Hamas released three other Israeli men from captivity to Gaza on Saturday, after the ceasefire of four more and more fragile weeks collapsed in a hit week.
The Israelis were given to the International Red Cross Committee during a carefully staged ceremony in Khan Younis, a mainly destroyed city – and a bastion of Hamas – in the gang of the south of Gaza.
They had been taken hostage from their homes in the Kibbutz Nir Oz during the assault of the Palestinian militant group against Israel on October 7, 2023 in which around 1,200 people were killed, according to Israeli officials.
Sagui Dekel-Chen, an American-Israeli, 36-year-old Russian-Israeli, Sasha Troufanov, 29, and Argentinian-Israeli Iir Horn, 46 who was released last weekend.
During the ceremony, Hamas fighters showed weapons and uniforms which they had captured in Israeli military bases during the cross -border raid in 2023.
Israel began to publish more than 350 Palestinian prisoners later on Saturday under the terms of the ceasefire, 36 of which served perpetuity for violence against the Israelis.
The vast majority of others had been held without trials in Israeli prisons after being detained in Gaza during the 15 months of war. According to local officials.
The agreement almost collapsed earlier this week after Hamas affirmed that Israel raped the ceasefire by blocking the entry into Gaza of heavy machines to erase the rubble and the mobile houses to house hundreds Thousands of displaced Palestinian civilians.
Hamas has threatened to delay the release of hostages if Israel has not facilitated the entry of the equipment, as required by the cease-fire agreement. In the following days, the Arab media released images of certain heavy machines entering via Egypt, and Hamas agreed on Friday to continue the offbeat outings of the hostages.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that he had forced Hamas backwards by redeploying troops near the Gaza border in southern Israel and promising to restart war if the liberation did not take place As expected.
“This week, once again, Hamas has tried to violate the agreement and create a false crisis,” he said in a statement.
The ceasefire in three stages is in a transition period between the first and second phases, during which the negotiations to end the war are supposed to take place.
During the first six -week period – which ends in early March – Hamas is required to release 33 Israeli hostages, including all children, women and men over 50.
On Saturday, he published 24 people – 19 Israelis and five Thai agricultural workers who were also taken hostage on October 7. Many remaining 73 hostages are said to have died. Of the other 14 covers in this first phase, only six hostages are alive.
The group initially took around 250 people hostage on October 7, 2023. It released around 120 during a short ceasefire in November 2023 in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
Hamas will begin to release the male soldiers which it has taken in captivity and to put the bodies of dead hostages only if the negotiations succeed in converting the temporary ceasefire into a permanent truce. This would force Israel to permanently withdraw its Gaza forces.
These talks were to start last week, but Israel has not yet invaded high-level teams in Qatar or Egypt, who mediated the agreement in the United States.
The framework of the ceasefire is increasingly subject to pressure due to operational Wrangles and repeated statements by US President Donald Trump that he has the United States to resume Gaza.
Trump’s proposal, which could lead to mass expulsion of some 2.3 million Palestinian civilians, has embarked Netanyahu, who is increasingly reluctant to end the war with Hamas.
Trump welcomed the king of Jordan Abdullah at the White House this week and repeated his assertion that Jordan and Egypt would host refugees, despite the general condemnation of the Plan in the Arab world.
“We tell the world that there is no migration except in Jerusalem,” said Hamas in a statement after the release of the hostages on Saturday. “This is our response to Trump’s calls to travel and liquidation.”
