The Palestinian resistance group Hamas released eight hostages Thursday as part of ongoing exchanges under the Gaza cease-fire, with Israel expected to free 110 Palestinian prisoners in return.
The release was delayed by a chaotic scene in which a crowd of Palestinians surrounded and jeered at hostages as they were turned over to the Red Cross.
The truce is aimed at winding down Israel's 15-month genocidal war since Oct. 7, 2023. It has held despite a dispute earlier this week over the sequence in which the hostages were released.
The first hostage, female Israeli soldier Agam Berger, was released in northern Gaza. Hours later, a chaotic scene unfolded as thousands of people pressed around a handover site in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, in front of the destroyed home of slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
Footage showed Arbel Yehoud, a 29-year-old hostage, as she was led through the crowd by resistance members toward waiting Red Cross vehicles.
Hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad members arrived with a convoy in a show of force and thousands of people gathered to watch, some from the tilted rooftops of bombed-out buildings.
Red Cross vehicles were then delayed as they tried to drive away. The Israeli army later announced the Red Cross had confirmed it had the freed hostages. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the "shocking scene" and called on international mediators to prevent similar events in the future.
Hamas had earlier handed Berger, 20, to the Red Cross after parading her in front of a crowd in the heavily destroyed urban refugee camp of Jabalia in northern Gaza. The Israeli government later released footage of Berger hugging and crying with her parents.
Berger was among five young, female soldiers abducted in the Oct. 7 attack. The other four were released Saturday.
People cheered, clapped and whistled at a square in Tel Aviv where supporters of the hostages watched Berger’s handover on big screens next to a large clock that’s counted the days the hostages have been in captivity.
The other two Israelis released Thursday are Yehoud and Gadi Moses, an 80-year-old man. Five Thai nationals were freed, but were not been officially identified.
A number of foreign workers were taken captive along with dozens of Israeli civilians and soldiers during the Hamas incursion. Twenty-three Thais were among more than 100 hostages released during a weeklong cease-fire in November 2023. Israel says eight Thais remain in captivity, two of whom are believed to be dead.
Of the people set to be released from prisons in Israel, 30 are serving life sentences after being convicted of deadly attacks against Israelis.
Zakaria Zubeidi, a prominent former resistance leader and theater director who took part in a dramatic jailbreak in 2021 before being rearrested days later, is also among those set to be released.
Israel said Yehoud was supposed to have been freed Saturday and delayed the opening of crossings to northern Gaza when she was not.
The United States, Egypt and Qatar, which brokered the cease-fire after a year of tough negotiations, resolved the dispute with an agreement that Yehoud would be released Thursday. Another three hostages, all men, are set to be freed Saturday along with dozens more Palestinian prisoners.
On Monday, Israel began allowing Palestinians to return to northern Gaza, the most heavily destroyed part of the territory, and hundreds of thousands streamed back. Many found only mounds of rubble where their homes had been.
In the first phase of the cease-fire, Hamas is set to release a total of 33 Israeli hostages, including women, children, older adults and sick or wounded men, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Israel says Hamas has confirmed that eight of the hostages to be released in this phase are dead.
Palestinians have cheered the release of the prisoners, who they widely see as heroes who have sacrificed for the cause of ending Israel’s decadeslong occupation of lands they want for a future state.
Israeli forces have meanwhile pulled back from most of Gaza, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to return to what remains of their homes and humanitarian groups to surge assistance.
The deal calls for Israel and Hamas to negotiate a second phase in which Hamas would release the remaining hostages and the cease-fire would continue indefinitely. The war could resume in early March if an agreement is not reached.
Israel says it is still committed to destroying Hamas, even after the resistance group reasserted its rule over Gaza within hours of the truce. A key far-right partner in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is already calling for the war to resume after the cease-fire’s first phase.
Hamas says it won't release the remaining hostages without an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
The war was triggered by the Hamas incrusion on Oct. 7, 2023, which caused around 1,200 deaths and took 250 hostages, according to Israeli tally.
Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, in comparison, killed over 47,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
