Tel Aviv – American-Israéli Dual National Keith Siegel was one of three Published hostages By Hamas activists in the Gaza Strip torn by the war on Saturday, more than 15 months after their captivity by the group during its terrorist attack on October 7, 2023. Siegel was released in Gaza City about two hours after the Liberation of Israelis Yarden Bibas and Ofer Calderon in the southern city of Khan Younis.
The Israeli army confirmed that the three hostages were in charge and in Israel after being given for the first time to the Red Cross staff in Gaza. Siegel seemed to have lost weight during his captivity, but he gave and smiled while Hamas activists were preparing to give him to the Red Cross staff. In a statement, Israeli defense forces said that the three liberated men would be gathered with family members and taken for medical checks and care in Israel hospitals.
The two transfers were made quickly on Saturday and without the chaos seen during the third exchange of previous prisonersWho has angry Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who delayed the Israeli release of Palestinian prisoners corresponding to several hours.
Dawoud Abu Alkas / Reuters
Israel was to release approximately 90 Palestinians of its prisons on Saturday in exchange for the release of the three hostages, as stipulated in the cease-fire agreement which took effect on January 19.
Keith Siegel is 1st American Freed during the new ceasefire
Originally from North Carolina, Siegel moved to Israel four decades ago. He was part of seven American citizens taken hostage in Gaza during the unprecedented attack on October 7 in Hamas, who saw activists kill about 1,200 people in southern Israel and take 251 other captives.
The military aggression of Israel against Hamas in response killed more than 47,400 people, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, left whole neighborhoods leveled and caused a humanitarian disaster by moving the population of the Enclave and destroying its infrastructure.
It is believed that at least two of the six American hostages still held in Gaza are alive – Sagui Dekel -Chen, 35, who grew up in Bloomfield, Connecticut and Edan Alexander, 19, from Tenafly, New Jersey. Four other Americans were reportedly killed in captivity.
Siegel’s wife Aviva was also taken hostage by Hamas activists on October 7, but was released in an previous exchange of hostages and prisoners in November 2023.
Addressing CBS News about a year after his release, Aviva Siegel said there were moments when Hamas activists forced her, as well as her husband, through tunnels under the band of Gaza that they felt “sure we were going to die”.
Yarden Bibas, 35, is the husband of Shiri Bibas, who was withdrawn from their Kibbutz with her two young children Ariel and Kfir during the terrorist attack. Hamas asked Only a few weeks after the attack that Shiri and his two children were killed in an Israeli bombardment in Gaza.
In a television interview about a year later, the Minister of the Israeli government, Benny Gantz, said that the officials knew what had happened to the Bibas family, but said that he could not provide details. The fact that, under the terms of the ceasefire agreement, Hamas released women and children before male hostages, suggested that the rest of Yarden Bibas’ family was indeed dead.
Reuters TV / Reuters
OFER CALDERON, 54, was one of the five members of his family seized by Hamas activists from their KIBBOUTZ near the Gaza border on October 7, 2023. His two children were released During the ceasefire in November of the same year, but two of his cousins were killed.
What has the ceasefire accomplished and what is the next one?
Hamas is expected to release a total of 33 Israeli hostages during the first phase of six weeks of the cease-fire release agreement and hostages, which took effect on January 19. After the release of Saturday 18 years. With each release of Israeli hostages, dozens of Palestinians have been released from Israeli prisons, with around 30 people released for each hostage returned to Living Israel.
Phase One of the Deal Was To See All Israeli Women, Children and Male Hostages Over the Age of 50 Released in Exchange for Hundreds of Palestinian Prisoners, In addition to a dramatically Increased Flow of Humanitarian Aid Into Gaza and the Partial Withdrawal of Israeli Forces from Certain areas of the territory.
The 16th day of the ceasefire, which would be on Monday, negotiations to establish the stages of the second phase should begin, according to a project of the agreement shared with CBS News by a senior Hamas official.
There was a few moments when it appeared that the fragile agreement could collapse, including when the hostage Arbel Yehoud was not released because Israel said that she should have been in one of the first exchanges. Quick negotiations have led to a dispute resolution, and Yehoud was among the people released by activists in Gaza in the third exchange on Thursday.
“Any agreement that takes two or three months to put an end to a war is a bad deal, because it can leave the rails at any time, and at any time, one of the sides can accuse the other of violation”, analyst analyst Israeli and former Friday, hostage negotiator Gershon Baskin told CBS News.
“We have already had mutual accusations of violation. Right now, the two parties are at least interested in advancing this at the end of the 42 days” of phase one, said Baskin.
Baskin, who has a vast experience of negotiation with Hamas, warned that “you could not share the two parties” before the negotiations expected during the second phase of the agreement.
“What we hear about the Israeli part is that they will not end the war or will not withdraw from Gaza, and what we hear from Hamas is that there is not Okay, unless it ends the war and causes an Israeli withdrawal, “he said.
But Baskin added that the new Trump administration in the United States would likely play an essential role in determining how negotiations really take place.
“I think everything is on Trump’s shoulders,” Baskin told CBS News. “If Trump is determined that this will take place, Netanyahu cannot go against him. Netanyahu could try to create a kind of provocation, which led Hamas to break the ceasefire, in which case Israel will tell the Americans: “They violated it and now we have to go back to war. If Trump says yes, then it’s the end.
