On Sunday, the third day of their ceasefire, Israel released 39 Palestinian inmates while Hamas liberated 17 captives held in Gaza, including a 4-year-old American child.
Seventeen hostages from Gaza have reportedly been successfully transferred, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. According to Hamas, it has turned over three Thai nationals, one Russian citizen, and thirteen Israelis.
The release of 39 Palestinians, all of whom are minors, coincided with the release of the hostages, who were part of a larger group taken prisoner when Hamas gunmen stormed across southern Israel on October 7. The Palestinian news agency WAFA reported this information.
Hamas stated that it would want to extend the ceasefire if Israel made significant efforts to increase the number of Palestinian prisoners released.
According to U.S. President Joe Biden, he hopes that the ceasefire will last as long as captives are freed. Despite not having solid information, he hoped that Hamas would free additional Americans.
Abigail Edan, a 4-year-old captive, allegedly saw her parents killed by Hamas gunmen during their invasion of Israel on October 7.
“What she went through is unimaginable,” Biden stated during an American press conference. According to Channel 13, Abigail was going to the hospital for examinations. “I simply could not believe” that she was back, her grandfather, Carmel Edan, told Reuters. He thanked Biden “for all the help he’s offered us.”
According to WAFA, the liberated detainees were welcomed with joy by Palestinians in Ramallah. One of the 17-year-old prisoners released on Sunday, Omar Abdullah Al-Hajj, claimed he had been kept in the dark about events taking place in the outside world.
“I can’t believe I’m free now, but my joy is incomplete because we still have our brothers who remain in prison, and then there is all the news about Gaza that I am having to learn about now,” he stated to Reuters.
It has been seven weeks since Hamas massacred 1,200 people and brought roughly 240 captives back into Gaza, and this four-day truce marks the first time that hostilities have stopped.
Israel has promised to destroy the Hamas terrorists who control Gaza in retaliation for that incident, shelling the territory and launching a land invasion in the north. According to Gaza health officials, there have been almost 14,800 Palestinian deaths and hundreds of thousands of displacements.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, met with security personnel on Sunday in the Gaza Strip. He said that he had a conversation with Biden over the hostage release and that he would be in favor of a brief ceasefire if it meant that ten prisoners would be released for each extra day.
After the truce, Netanyahu claimed to have informed Biden that “we will return with full force to achieve our goals: the elimination of Hamas, ensuring that Gaza does not return to what it was, and, of course, the release of all our hostages.”
FRAGILE BUSINESS
The release of the hostages on Sunday comes after 13 Israelis were freed on Saturday; six of them were ladies, and seven of them were youngsters or teens. Yahel Shoham, age three, was the youngest; she was let go together with her mother and brother, but her father is still being held captive.
According to WAFA, Israel released 39 Palestinians from two jails on the same day, including 33 minors and six women. According to a Palestinian source, up to 100 captives may eventually be released.
The U.S., Qatar, and Egypt are pushing for the truce to go past Monday, but it’s unclear if that will happen. Conflicts and accusations have the potential to destroy the current agreement.
The passing of a Palestinian farmer in the center of the Gaza Strip earlier had heightened those worries. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, the farmer was murdered when Israeli soldiers opened fire on him east of the long-standing Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza.
The commander of the North Gaza brigade, Ahmad Al Ghandour, was among the four military leaders of Hamas who were slain, according to a statement released by the organization on Sunday. When they had been slain was not stated.
According to local sources and medical professionals, there has also been an increase in violence in the West Bank, where Israeli troops killed seven Palestinians, including two children and at least one shooter, late on Saturday and early on Sunday.
The West Bank had been in turmoil for the previous eighteen months due to an increase in Israeli army incursions, Palestinian assaults, and violence by Israeli settlers, even before the strikes on October 7 from Gaza. Since October 7, around 200 Palestinians have died in the West Bank, some of them as a result of Israeli airstrikes.
HUGE SOLUTION
The agreement withstood an earlier threat when the armed wing of Hamas announced on Saturday that it would postpone freeing hostages until Israel fulfilled all requirements of the truce, including allowing supply trucks to enter northern Gaza.
President Biden participated in a day of diplomatic mediation by Qatar and Egypt to save the truce.
The al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas asserted that Israel had not complied with conditions for the release of Palestinian captives that took into account the length of their incarceration.
The Israeli Organization for Civilian Cooperation with the Palestinians, COGAT, charged that vehicles attempting to transport supplies to the northern part of Gaza were being delayed at a checkpoint by Hamas.
“Gaza residents are the last priority for Hamas,” the group declared on Sunday. The Foreign Ministry of Qatar announced that Qatari officials are currently present in Gaza to oversee the admission and distribution of their nation’s aid.
Participating in a humanitarian convoy to northern Gaza, a U.N. official said on Sunday that relief organizations were expected to provide the most significant delivery in over a month. The source described the locals as emaciated and malnourished, quenching their thirst as soon as the water came.
“People are so desperate, and you can see in adults’ eyes they haven’t eaten,” James Elder of the U.N. children’s agency told Reuters via video link from southern Gaza upon his return from Gaza City.
“Just an overwhelming sense of relief. People literally begin drinking water as soon as they obtain it,” he said. “They have a thirst. They’ve had no water for days.”
Elder claimed to have seen hundreds of Gazans moving in the opposite direction as humanitarian supplies continued to flow north out of concern that Israeli shelling would resume if the four-day ceasefire were not extended. “People are so terrified that this pause won’t be continued,” he stated.
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