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Bayaya Lubell, Nidal al-Mughrabi with Dawoud Abu Alkas
Jerusalem/Cairo/Gaza (Reuters) –Hamas on Saturday freed four Israeli soldiers in exchange for 200 Palestinian prisoners in the second exchange under the Gaza truce, but a delay in freeing another hostage led Israel to halt the return from the Gazans to the Gazans to the Gazans to the Gazans to the north.
The four freed Israelis were brought to a podium in Gaza City amid a large crowd of Palestinians and surrounded by dozens of Hamas gunmen. They waved and smiled before being taken away, entering Red Cross vehicles to be transported to Israeli forces.
Shortly afterward, buses carrying freed Palestinian prisoners were seen leaving the Israeli Ofer military prison in the occupied West Bank. Israel’s prison service said all 200 had been released.
The launches on either side were met by cheering crowds, including Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv and Palestinians gathered in Ramallah.
But Hamas’s failure to free another hostage, a female Israeli civilian, led Israel to announce that it was halting plans to let Palestinians return to northern parts of Gaza, the worst area in the war. Hamas said it would release her next week, and called the reopening of the north a violation of the truce.
The truce requires Hamas to release 33 women, children, elderly, sick and wounded hostages in a first phase of six weeks, with Israel releasing 30 prisoners for each civilian and 50 for each soldier.
The four Israeli soldiers released on Saturday – Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag – had been stationed at an observation post on the edge of Gaza when Hamas fighters invaded their base and kidnapped them during the September 7 attack. October 2023. in Israel that precipitated the war.
Their parents clapped and screamed with joy when they saw them on the screen, watching the delivery of the live transfer from a nearby military base across the border. In Tel Aviv, hundreds of Israelis gathered at a rally point now widely known as hostage boxes, crying, hugging and cheering as the launch aired on a giant screen.
The women were reunited with their families and then flew aboard helicopters to a hospital in central Israel. The video released by the Israeli army showed them hugging their parents, with smiles and tears.
The 200 Palestinians freed Saturday include militants, some serving life sentences for their role in attacks that killed dozens of people, according to a list released by Hamas.
Israel says those convicted of killing Israelis will not be allowed to return home. About 70 will be deported to Egypt, Palestinian officials said, and from there to another country, possibly Türkiye, Qatar or Algeria.
Another 16 were sent to Gaza and the rest were released to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where cheering crowds waving Palestinian flags gathered in Ramallah to greet them.
DISPUTE
Joy in Israel during Saturday’s launch was clouded by disappointment after it emerged that Arbel Yehud, 29, who had been kidnapped with her boyfriend from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, was not among those launched on Saturday.
An Israeli military spokesman called it a violation of the truce, while Hamas said it was a technical problem. A Hamas official said the group had informed mediators that she was alive and would be released next Saturday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Palestinians in Gaza would not be able to cross back into the northern part of the territory until the issue was resolved.
Palestinian officials said up to 650,000 displaced people were waiting to return to the north as of Sunday under the ceasefire. Witnesses said there was a stampede on a road leading north, blocked by Israeli troops who opened fire.
Doctors said one person was killed there by suspected Israeli fire, one of the few deaths reported since the truce began. Two others were injured. Reuters sought comment from the Israeli military on the incident.
Thousands of people were gathered with their belongings along the coastal highway, where they said an Israeli tank continued to block the road north.
“I won’t go back to the store,” he told Reuters via a chat app. “Where are the mediators? Why can’t they force Israel to respect the deal?”
The ceasefire agreement, made after months of on-again, off-again negotiations brokered by Qatar and Egypt and backed by the United States, has halted fighting for the first time in more than a year.
After Saturday’s launch, 90 hostages remain in Gaza, according to Israeli authorities, who have declared about a third of them dead in absentia.
All twenty-six are still scheduled for release in the first phase, after which the parties are expected to negotiate the exchange of the rest, including the military-age men and the withdrawal of Israeli forces.
Families of hostages to be released in later phases worry that the ceasefire could break first. Some Israeli critics of the truce say Israel must resume fighting to prevent Hamas from returning to power in Gaza. Hamas says it will not release all the hostages until the war ends forever.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after the Hamas attack on October 7, when militants killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli accounts. Since then, Israel’s campaign has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to health authorities there. More than 400 Israeli soldiers have also been killed in the Gaza combat.
