Khan Younis (Reuters) – Many joyful but wary Palestinians emerged from makeshift shelters at the start of the four-day Gaza ceasefire on Friday to begin the long journey back to their homes.
In the southern town of Khan Younis, which has been housing thousands of displaced families including from heavily bombarded northern Gaza, streets were packed with people on the move.
Hundreds were heading towards the north, despite Israel dropping leaflets warning them not to go back to an area it described as still being a dangerous war zone.
Men, women and children carried their belongings in plastic bags, shopping bags and rucksacks. One family sat on the back of cart piled high with bags and pulled by a donkey.
Some people looked up to the sky as if to check they were not in danger of attack from Israeli warplanes.
“I am now very happy, I feel at ease,” said Ahmad Wael, trudging along with a large mattress on his head.
“I am going back to my home, our hearts are rested, especially that there is a four-day official ceasefire, better than returning to live in tents. I am very tired from sitting there, without any food or water. There (at home) we can live, we drink tea, make bread using fire, and the oven.”
The United Nations says around two-thirds of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are homeless, including most of the population of Gaza City and the rest of the northern half of the enclave, reduced to a wasteland by Israel’s assault.
Khan Younis, the main city in the south, has also not proved safe. Many of its buildings are now in rubble, destroyed by Israeli strikes in its campaign in response to the deadly Hamas attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7.
“Honestly it is a nice feeling for one to be able to go back home after all this time, to see their families and loved ones, but we are still hesitant and afraid,” said Souad Abou Nasirat, a Khan Younis resident.
“A four-day truce is not enough, those (in the north) of Gaza, may God give them patience. We’re worried about them.”
U.N. agencies voiced hope that the truce would allow aid to flow to northern Gaza for the first time in weeks.
Some People Stay
Alaa Al Moubachar, sitting outside a Khan Younis medical centre with her children, said the neighbourhood where she lived in Gaza City had been destroyed.
“I see people coming and going, coming and going, and I swear my soul is crying, my heart is crying,” she said. “I just want to go back, even if just for an hour to see my house and the neighbourhood, to see Gaza (City) and what happened to it.”
“We went out with nothing, we only took some summer clothes,” she said. “We are (housed) in schools, it is cold, windy and rainy and we don’t have any winter things or anything. We are mentally exhausted. We stand in queues for the bathroom, we stand in queues for the bakery. Our lives have become very, very hard.”
Some Palestinians in Khan Younis say they will wait until the end of the war before returning home.
“Even if I went back home, I fear I (would) go and there would be another attack on the area and I (would) die. I will only go back there once the war is over,” said Ahmad Kabalan, 80, whose home is east of Khan Younis.
“I don’t trust what Israel promises, I don’t have faith in them, not even for an hour. What if there would be artillery shelling? I don’t believe in this ceasefire. God knows what will happen, whether we will live or die.”
Geneva (Reuters) – The International Red Cross confirmed on Friday that its teams had started carrying out a multi-day operation to facilitate the release and transfer of hostages held in Gaza and of Palestinian detainees.
A spokesperson confirmed that 24 hostages were transferred out of Gaza and handed over to Egyptian authorities at the Rafah border crossing. He said they were accompanied by eight staff members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in a four-car convoy.
“The deep pain that family members separated from their loved ones feel is indescribable. We are relieved that some will be reunited after long agony,” said Fabrizio Carboni, the ICRC’s regional director for the Near and Middle East.
No further details were given. The ICRC, a neutral, Swiss-based organisation, also says the operation also involves the delivery of additional, much-needed aid into Gaza.
Jerusalem (Reuters) – The first group of Israelis freed from captivity in Gaza on Friday returned to Israel on the first day of a planned four-day truce during which further exchanges of hostages for Palestinian detainees are due to take place.
The 13 released included four small children and their mothers as well as five elderly women. They were among around 240 people abducted by gunmen from the Islamist movement Hamas who rampaged through southern Israel on Oct. 7.
“Children, their mothers and other women. Every one of them is a world in themselves,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. “But I stress to you, the families, and to you, citizens of Israel: We are committed to bringing back all our hostages.”
As well as the Israeli hostages, 10 Thais and one Filipino, who were taken captive at the same time, were also freed under a separate agreement, Qatari mediators said.
After the released hostages underwent initial medical checks and were taken to be reunited with their families, medical authorities said they appeared to be in good physical condition and were undergoing more evaluations.
Roni Haviv, a relative of Ohad Munder, said she was looking forward to giving the nine-year-old his favourite toy.
“I’m waiting to see Ohad and can’t wait to give him his Rubik’s Cube, which I know he really loved and he probably missed it so much and that’s the first thing he takes everywhere he goes,” she told Reuters.
The rest of a group of at least 50 Israeli hostages due to be exchanged under a Qatari-brokered agreement are expected to be freed in the coming days and more hostages could be added if the truce deal is extended.
In exchange, 39 Palestinian women and minors detained by Israel were released on Friday, the first of a group of 150 who are due to be freed from Israeli detention under the agreement.
Mixed Emotions
For the families of the hostages, there was happiness mingled with concern for those who remained in Gaza.
“I am happy I received my family back, it’s allowed to feel joy and it’s allowed to shed a tear. That’s a human thing,” said Yoni Katz Asher, whose wife Doron and children Raz and Aviv were freed on Friday. “But I am not celebrating, I will not celebrate until the last of the hostages returns home.”
Israeli leaders have sworn to free the rest of the hostages as the military pursues an invasion of Gaza launched in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, which killed around 1,200 people, according to an Israeli tally.
The military campaign has killed around 14,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian medical authorities and reduced much of Gaza to rubble.
For the moment, the hostages are being kept away from the media while their condition is assessed and for those whose relatives have not come home, the wait continues in a conflicting swirl of feelings.
“The emotions are mixed emotions,” said Shelly Shem Tov, the mother Omer Shem Tov, 21, who had attended an outdoor dance festival that was targeted in the attack, and was among those taken hostage. He was not among those released on Friday.
“I’m excited for the families who today are going to hug their loved ones. I am jealous. And I am sad. Mostly sad that Omer is still not coming home,” she said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12.
(This story has been refiled to fix the spelling of Yoni Katz Asher in paragraph 12)
Nantucket (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday that the chances were “real” of a truce between Israel and Hamas being extended and he expressed hope that U.S. citizens taken hostage by the Palestinian militant group would be freed soon.
Biden also praised U.S. diplomacy behind the truce and Friday’s release of 24 hostages who were taken by Hamas to Gaza in its Oct. 7 attack on Israel, saying it was the start of what he expected would be further releases in coming days.
“Beginning this morning, under a deal reached by extensive U.S. diplomacy, including numerous calls I’ve made from the Oval Office to leaders across the region, fighting in Gaza will halt for four days,” Biden told a press conference.
Asked whether the truce could be extended, Biden said: “I think the chances are real.”
Biden declined to speculate about how long the Israel-Hamas war would last. Asked by a reporter what his expectations were, Biden said Israel’s goal of eliminating Hamas was a legitimate but difficult mission.
“I don’t know how long it will take,” Biden told reporters.
“My expectation and hope is that as we move forward, the rest of the Arab world and the region is also putting pressure on all sides to slow this down, to bring this to an end as quickly as we can.”
Under the terms of the truce, 50 women and children hostages are to be released over four days, in return for 150 Palestinian women and children among thousands of detainees in Israeli jails. Israel says the truce could be extended if more hostages are released at a rate of 10 per day.
Both sides have promised a return to fighting.
Abu Ubaida, spokesperson for Hamas’ armed wing, said in a video message that this was a “temporary truce” and called for an “escalation of the confrontation … on all resistance fronts”, including the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant spoke similarly, calling the pause “short” and saying that at its conclusion “the war (and) fighting will continue with great might.”
Israel has retaliated against Hamas for the Oct. 7 attack in which the government says Hamas gunmen killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and seized about 240 hostages.
The Israeli military has bombarded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, killing about 14,000 Gazans, around 40% of them children, according to Palestinian health authorities.
The civilian death toll has generated international outcry and protests even in the United States, a staunch ally of Israel.
Biden spoke to reporters on Friday while vacationing with his family on the Massachusetts island of Nantucket.
As Biden and his wife, Jill, walked around Nantucket after his remarks, some in the gathered crowd loudly shouted: “Free Palestine!”
Biden said earlier that he had raised civilian casualties with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“I’ve encouraged the prime minister to focus on trying to reduce the number of casualties while he is attempting to eliminate Hamas, which is a legitimate objective,” Biden told reporters.
Istanbul (Reuters) – Several hundred mourners gathered outside a mosque in Istanbul on Friday to lament the death of two Turkish men who militant Islamist group Hamas said were killed earlier this week in Israeli strikes on south Lebanon.
A total of nine people were killed in the strikes on Tuesday, including two journalists, two other civilians and five Hamas members including a senior member of the militant group.
Hamas has said the two Turks were in a car carrying five people who were all killed. Lebanese authorities have not commented on the Turks’ deaths or the circumstances under which they came to be in Lebanon.
About 400 people, many of them waving green and white Hamas flags, joined funeral prayers for the two Turkish men, Seyfullah Bilal Ozturk and Yakup Erdal, outside the Beyazit Mosque in the heart of Istanbul’s historic district.
“The martyrs’ blood will drown Israel,” said a large banner held by some of those attending.
Some were crying and some celebrating what they described as the martyrdom of the two men, chanting, “We will continue on the martyrs’ path”.
“I’ve known Bilal since he was young. They were beautiful people who really devoted their lives to this path,” said Ramazan Ileri, an acquaintance of Ozturk’s.
“God willing, may God bless their martyrdom. They gave up their lives for this cause and they set an example for us.”
Bangkok (Reuters) – Palestinian militant group Hamas is still holding 20 Thai nationals after having freed 10 from Gaza, Thailand’s foreign ministry said on Saturday, following a deal during the first truce of a seven-week war.
The freed hostages will return home after 48 hours in hospital, the ministry said in a statement after the deal brokered separately from Friday’s exchange of hostages for Palestinians from Israeli jails.
“There are now an estimated 20 Thai nationals who remain abducted,” the ministry said, however, adding that four of the Thais released on Friday had not previously been confirmed by Israel to be in captivity.
“We sincerely hope the remaining hostages will be treated humanely and released safely as soon as possible.”
Among those released was the only Thai woman known to be held by Hamas, photographs from the ministry showed, as the group met doctors at a medical centre in Israel.
A source briefed on the negotiations said the release was unrelated to the truce deal with Israel and followed a separate track of talks with Hamas mediated by Egypt and Qatar.
The ministry thanked the governments of Egypt, Iran, Israel, Malaysia, Qatar and the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as others involved in the “immense efforts” that led to the release.
Earlier reports had said about a dozen Thais had been released.
About 30,000 Thai nationals work in Israel, forming one of its largest groups of migrant workers, many in agriculture.
Among those freed on Friday were Wichai Kalapat whose girlfriend told the BBC she had spotted him alive in a car carrying hostages from the border.
She had initially believed him to have been among at least 30 Thai nationals killed in the Oct 7 attacks and had posted messages mourning him on social media.
The group included the only Thai woman to have been held, Nutthawaree Munkan, who is a factory worker and mother from a rural and impoverished region that many leave to seek opportunities abroad.
Thongkoon Onkaew told Reuters that authorities said her son, Natthaporn Onkaew, a 26-year-old farm worker, was not among the first group released, however, adding, “I’m waiting for good news.”
Gaza/Jerusalem (Reuters) – Israel has received a list of hostages to be freed from Gaza on Saturday by Palestinian militant group Hamas, officials said, following the release of 24 hostages the previous day, the first of a planned four-day truce.
Israeli security officials were reviewing the list, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement, after his government’s vow to work for the release of all hostages taken by Hamas in an attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
The pause in the fighting was the first such break, with both sides saying hostilities would resume as soon as the truce ends. U.S. President Joe Biden expressed hope the pause could be extended, however.
The released hostages, including Israeli women and children and Thai farm workers, were transferred from Gaza and handed to Egyptian authorities at the Rafah border crossing, along with eight staff of the International Committee of the Red Cross in a four-car convoy, the organisation said.
They were then taken to Israel for medical checks and re-unions with relatives.
Qatar, which acted as mediator for the truce deal, said 13 Israelis had been released, some with dual nationality, as well as 10 Thais and a Philippine national – farm workers employed in southern Israel when they were seized.
Thirty-nine Palestinian women and children detainees were released from Israeli jails. The freed Israeli hostages included four children accompanied by four family members, and five elderly women.
Biden said there was a real chance of extending the truce, adding that the pause was a critical opportunity to get humanitarian aid into Gaza.
He declined to speculate how long the Israel-Hamas war would last. Asked at a press conference what his expectations were, he said Israel’s goal of eliminating Hamas was legitimate but difficult.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said 196 trucks of humanitarian aid carried food, water and medical supplies through the Rafah crossing on Friday, the biggest such convoy into Gaza since Hamas’ assault on Israel and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of the territory.
About 1,759 trucks have entered the narrow enclave since Oct. 21, it added.
Mixed Emotions In Isreal
The families of the hostages expressed mixed emotions, fearing for those left behind.
“I’m excited for the families who today are going to hug their loved ones,” Shelly Shem Tov, the mother of Omer Shem Tov, 21, said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12, although he was not among those released on Friday.
“I am jealous. And I am sad. Mostly sad that Omer is still not coming home.”
Israeli tallies show Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people in the October attack and took about 240 hostages. Since then, Israel has rained bombs on the Hamas-ruled enclave, killing about 14,000 Gazans, roughly 40% of them children, Palestinian health authorities say.
Hundreds of thousands of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, including most of those in its northern half.
After initial medical checks, the released hostages were taken to be re-united with their families. Medical authorities said they appeared to be in good physical condition and were facing more evaluations.
Roni Haviv, a relative of Ohad Munder, said she was looking forward to giving the nine-year-old his favourite toy.
“I’m waiting to see Ohad and can’t wait to give him his Rubik’s Cube, which I know he really loved and he probably missed it so much, and that’s the first thing he takes everywhere he goes,” she said.
Those released on Friday were exchanged for 24 jailed Palestinian women and 15 teenagers. In at least three cases, before the prisoners were released, Israeli police raided their families’ homes in Jerusalem, witnesses said.
Police declined to comment.
“There is no real joy, even this little joy we feel as we wait,” said Sawsan Bkeer, the mother of 24-year-old Palestinian prisoner Marah Bkeer, jailed for eight years on knife and assault charges in 2015.
Israeli police were seen raiding her Jerusalem home before her daughter was released.
“We are still afraid to feel happy and at the same time, we do not have it in us to be happy due to what is happening in Gaza,” she added.
A source briefed on the talks said the release of the Thai workers was unrelated to the truce talks and followed a separate track mediated by Egypt and Qatar. Thailand’s government said 20 of its nationals remained captive.
Beitunia (Reuters) – For the families of Palestinian detainees freed by Israel under a hostage deal agreed with the Islamist group Hamas, Friday brought relief tinged with sadness at the fighting that is set to continue in Gaza after the expiry of a four-day truce.
Thirty nine Palestinian women and minors detained on various charges were freed under an accord brokered by Qatar that also saw the release of 13 Israeli hostages seized by Hamas gunmen during their assault on Israel last month.
“There is no real joy, even this little joy we feel as we wait,” said Sawsan Bkeer, the mother of 24-year-old Palestinian prisoner Marah Bkeer, jailed for eight years on knife and assault charges in 2015. Israeli police were seen raiding her Jerusalem home before her daughter was released.
“We are still afraid to feel happy and at the same time, we do not have it in us to be happy due to what is happening in Gaza,” she said.
More than 100 more Palestinian prisoners are due to be released over the coming four days and more may be freed if the truce is extended.
In Beitunia, a city near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, a large crowd, mostly of young men, greeted freed prisoners by cheering, honking car horns and marching in the street carrying Palestinian flags.
Some in the crowd also carried the flag of the Hamas militant group that rules blockaded Gaza and chanted in support of Abu Ubaida, the spokesperson of the group’s armed wing.
“I can’t express how I feel. Thank God,” said 17-year-old Laith Othman, who was detained earlier this year on suspicion of throwing an incendiary device and released on Friday. “The situation inside (prison) is very difficult,” he said as he was carried along the street on someone’s shoulders.
Israeli commanders have vowed to free all the hostages as they prepare to pursue the campaign in Gaza launched in the wake of the Hamas attack, in which 1,200 Israelis and foreigners were killed, according to Israeli tallies.
Around 14,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza and the ground operation launched last month and the military says it is preparing for the next stage of the operation once the truce ends.
Ismail Shaheen, speaking from the Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem, said he was waiting to see his daughter Fatima, who was arrested earlier this year, accused of an attempted stabbing.
The 32-year-old computer scientist, who has a 5-year-old daughter, was shot during her arrest. Shaheen said he was surprised to see his daughter in a wheelchair when he was first allowed to visit her in prison, months after she was detained.
“Thank God she was released in this exchange deal,” he said. “We were happy that she was going to be released but only slightly so, because we cannot ignore the dire conditions of our brothers in Gaza, where thousands have been killed.”