Six more Israeli hostages were released to the Red Cross on Thursday, Israel said, as a short-term ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, the ruling militant group in the Gaza Strip, neared its week-long expiry. This followed the release of two more Israeli hostages earlier in the day.
The last six hostages were handed over to the Red Cross and are currently on their way to Israel via Egypt, the Israeli military said.
The spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry said Among those released Thursday were two minors and six women, including several with dual nationalities, including Israeli-Mexican, Israeli-Russian and Israeli-Uruguayan.
Click here to view related media.
Click to expand
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office identified the six released prisoners as 29-year-old Shani Goren, 41-year-old Nili Margalit, 30-year-old Ilana Gritzewsky Kimchi, 29-year-old Sapir Cohen and 18-year-old Bilal Ziyadne and the 17-year-old Aisha Ziyadne.
Bedouin siblings Bilal and Aisha Ziyadne, both Israeli citizens, were abducted from Kibbutz Holit, where they went to work with their father Yousef and older brother Hamza, a spokesman for the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said. Her father and older brother are still held captive by Hamas, the spokesman said.
As part of the deal, Israel released another 30 Palestinian prisoners, including 23 minors and seven women, the Qatari spokesman said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office identified the two Israelis released earlier in the day as 21-year-old Mia Shem and 40-year-old Amit Soussana.
Amit Soussana (pictured left) and Mia Shem (right) were released by Hamas on Thursday, November 30, after 55 days in captivity. Hostages and Missing Families Forum Headquarters via AP
Shem, a French-Israeli woman, appeared in a disturbing propaganda video released by Hamas in October with her right arm apparently injured. Her mother, Karen Schem, told CBS News at the time: “It’s very hard to see my daughter, I see the pain, I see that she’s in physical pain.”
“I can see that she is very emotional and very, very scared,” Karen Schem said.
Mia Schem was seen in a convoy near Ofakim, Israel, on Thursday after her release. Both Shem and Soussana were held captive in Gaza for 55 days.
Mia Shem, 21, who was released after 55 days in Hamas captivity in Gaza, is seen in a convoy near Ofakim, Israel, on November 30, 2023. Tsafrir Abayov/AP
Israel and Hamas agreed on Thursday to extend the temporary ceasefire in Gaza for at least 24 more hours, the Qatari government said, extending the humanitarian pause to the seventh consecutive day. The announcement came shortly before the ceasefire expired and followed an earlier extension of the pause in fighting.
The ceasefire began last Friday and was initially scheduled to last four days. Mediated by mediator Qatar as well as Egypt and the United States, it led to the first cessation of fighting since Israel declared war on Hamas and began bombing Gaza following the militants’ attack on Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people, according to reports killed. The backbone of the ceasefire is Hamas’s promise to release women and children held hostage in Gaza, and Israel’s promise in return to release Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
As part of the agreement, dozens of Hamas hostages have been sent back to Israel and well over 100 Palestinians have been freed from prisons. Israeli officials say more than 100 people abducted from Israel on October 7 remain in captivity.
Asked Thursday how many hostages held in Gaza were still alive, senior Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad told CBS News foreign correspondent Holly Williams: “I don’t know.”
“The number is not important,” Hamad said, adding: “We continue to release civilians.”
A senior Hamas leader says he does not know how many hostages remain in the Gaza Strip
Hamad told Williams that Hamas wants a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, which has been largely decimated by Israeli military airstrikes and where more than 15,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Hamas officials. Hamas has indicated that the group would be interested in releasing male hostages, including Israeli soldiers, if the ceasefire were further extended. Under the terms of their agreement, Israel has released about three Palestinian prisoners for every hostage released by Hamas, with all those released so far being women and children.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Netanyahu and other Israeli and Palestinian officials on Thursday in his third trip to the region since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. Blinken said he hoped the ceasefire could be extended again and more hostages would be released, the Associated Press reported.
“This process produces results. It is important and we hope it can continue,” he said, according to the AP.
Blinken also met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on Thursday, where he discussed “ongoing efforts to accelerate the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Gaza, including by maximizing humanitarian pauses,” a Blinken spokesman, Matthew, said Miller, in a statement.
Hamas’s latest extension of the ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages on Thursday came amid outbreaks of violence in Jerusalem and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli police said on Thursday that three people were killed in a shooting at a crowded bus stop in Jerusalem, with Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Gen-Gvir quickly blaming Hamas for the attack. Police said the two gunmen were killed at the scene by Israeli soldiers.
“These are apparently Hamas operatives who are speaking here with two voices – one voice for a so-called ceasefire and a second voice of terror,” Gavir, a far-right member of Netanyahu’s cabinet, told reporters at the scene of the shooting, according to BBC News.
Hamas and its armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for the attack in statements released later on Thursday. In it, they called the shooting “a natural response to Israel’s unprecedented occupation crimes,” seemingly in reference to military operations in Gaza. Wednesday’s killing of two children in the West Bank and “widespread violations faced by our prisoners” in Israeli prisons.
Israel and Hamas at war
More More Emily Mae Czachor