- Adds details in paragraphs 2, 4, 13 and 26
- LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
- Thirteen Israeli and four Thai hostages returned to Israel
- Egypt and Qatar are helping resolve the aid dispute that threatened the agreement
- A bus with liberated Palestinians in the West Bank can be seen on television
GAZA/JERUSALEM, Nov 26 (Portal) – Thirteen Israelis and four Thai nationals arrived in Israel on Sunday as part of the second release of hostages from Hamas captivity in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a deal briefly derailed by a dispute over Aid deliveries to Gaza were jeopardized.
Although resolved through mediation by Egypt and Qatar, the dispute, which threatened the prisoner release ceasefire, underscored the fragility of the pact to exchange 50 hostages held by the Palestinian militant group for 150 prisoners in Israeli prisons.
Hostages were seen in television images on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing after leaving Gaza as Hamas handed the prisoners over to the International Committee of the Red Cross late Saturday.
Six of the 13 Israelis released were women and seven were teenagers or children. The youngest was three-year-old Yahel Shoham, who was released along with her mother and brother, but her father remains a hostage.
“The released hostages are on their way to hospitals in Israel, where they will be reunited with their families,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement.
Israel has released 39 Palestinians – six women and 33 minors – from two prisons, the Palestinian news agency WAFA said.
Some of the Palestinians arrived at Al-Bireh community square in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where thousands of citizens were waiting for them, a Portal witness said.
A Palestinian official familiar with the diplomatic moves said Hamas would continue the ceasefire, the first cessation of fighting since Hamas militants rampaged across southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages.
In response to that attack, Israel has vowed to destroy the Hamas militants who rule Gaza, raining bombs and shells on the enclave and launching a ground offensive in the north. About 14,800 people, about 40% of them children, were killed, Palestinian health authorities said Saturday.
Saturday’s exchange follows Hamas’s first release of 13 Israeli hostages, including children and the elderly, the previous day in return for the release of 39 Palestinian women and teenagers from Israeli prisons.
On Friday, Hamas also released a Filipino citizen and 10 Thai farm workers.
The four Thais released on Saturday “want to take a shower and contact their relatives,” Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said on the social media platform X, adding that all were safe and showed little damage to their health.
Eighteen Thais remain in captivity, the Thai Foreign Ministry said on Sunday. The number reflects two previously unknown kidnappings.
“I’m so happy, I’m so glad, I can’t describe my feelings at all,” Thongkoon Onkaew told Portal by telephone after news broke of the release of her 26-year-old son Natthaporn, the family’s sole breadwinner.
How to prioritize releases
[1/11]Hila Rotem-Shoshani, who was kidnapped by Hamas gunmen during the October 7 attack on Israel, meets a family member at an undisclosed location in Israel after being held as part of a hostage and prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and Israel temporary ceasefire, published in this handout image… Purchase license rights Learn more
The deal was in danger of collapsing when Hamas’ armed wing said on Saturday it would delay releases until Israel met all ceasefire conditions, including a promise to allow aid trucks into the northern Gaza Strip.
Saving the deal required a day of high-profile diplomacy brokered by Qatar and Egypt, a process that included U.S. President Joe Biden and a call to Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan said only 65 of the 340 aid trucks that had entered Gaza since Friday had reached the north of Gaza, meaning “less than half of what Israel had agreed to.”
The Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed wing, also said Israel had not complied with conditions for the release of Palestinian prisoners, which took into account their time in prison.
The IDF said the United Nations and international organizations were distributing aid in the Gaza Strip. The United Nations said 61 trucks delivered aid to northern Gaza on Saturday, the most since the war began seven weeks ago. This included food, water and emergency medical supplies.
Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said there had been “many discussions” about how and who to prioritize for release, and that a key criterion for the Palestinian side was the length of time spent in Israeli prisons.
“We’re now hoping that by the second or third day of this pause we can clarify a lot of these details,” he told CNN.
Israel said the ceasefire could be extended if Hamas continued to release at least 10 hostages a day. A Palestinian source said up to 100 hostages could be released.
“The heart is divided”
Saturday also brought hours of nerve-wracking waiting for the hostages’ families, whose joy was tempered in part by the continued captivity of others.
“My heart is divided because my son Itay is still in Hamas captivity in Gaza,” Mirit Regev, the mother of Maya Regev, who was released late Saturday, said in a statement from the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, the she represents the families.
Waiting for the release of the Shohams, who left a parent hostage in Gaza, was nerve-wracking, said Aviv Havron, a relative. “But what does that compare to the 50 days they spent as hostages?” The Ynet news site quoted him as saying.
Also released was nine-year-old Irish-Israeli hostage Emily Hand, who was initially feared dead but spent her ninth birthday in captivity before being released along with 12-year-old Hila Rotem, whose mother remains in captivity.
“We are overjoyed to hug Emily again, but at the same time we remember Raya Rotem and all the hostages who have not yet returned,” Hand’s family said in a statement.
The Palestinians’ joy at the release was marked by bitterness.
“I feel like I’m in a dream, but I hope the war on Gaza ends as soon as possible,” one of them, Shorouk Dwayyat, who had served half of her 16-year sentence, told Al Jazeera TV.
Reporting by Emily Rose, Bassam Masoud, James Mackenzie, Maayan Lubell, Emma Farge, Aidan Lewis, Adam Makary, Nidal al-Mugrabi and Moaz Abd-Alaziz; Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah, Sybille de La Hamaide and Jeff Mason in Nantucket, Massachusetts; Writing by Humeyra Pamuk; Edited by Leslie Adler, Clarence Fernandez and William Mallard
Our standards: The Thomson Portal Trust Principles.
Acquire license rights, opens new tab