By Bassam Masoud and Maayan Lubell
Hamas is expected to release a second group of Israelis on Saturday, as a four-day truce planned to allow an exchange of 50 hostages for Palestinian prisoners remains in place in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Egyptian security sources said they had received the names of 14 Israeli women and children from Hamas and were awaiting more details on when the hostages would be handed over to Egyptian authorities.
Israeli security officials were reviewing the list, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office did not confirm the number or timing of the release.
Earlier, Israeli prison authorities had declared that they were preparing to release 42 Palestinian detainees, in accordance with the terms of the agreement reached with Qatari mediation last week.
Under the truce – the first in the seven-week war – 50 women and children held by Hamas will be released in stages over four days in exchange for 150 Palestinian women and children who are among the thousands detained in Israeli jails.
Hamas fighters freed 24 hostages on Friday – 13 Israelis, 10 Thai farmers and one Filipino – and Israel later released 24 Palestinian women and 15 teenagers detained by Israel.
The former hostages underwent medical check-ups before emotionally returning to reunite with their families in Israel, where happiness was mixed with concern for those still held by militants in Gaza.
“I’m happy to have my family back, you’re allowed to feel joy and you’re allowed to shed a tear. It’s human,” said Yoni Katz Asher, whose wife Doron and sons Raz and Aviv were freed Friday. “But I don’t celebrate it, I won’t celebrate it until the last of the hostages comes home.”
HELP TRUCKS
Both sides have said hostilities will resume as soon as the truce ends, although US President Joe Biden said there was a real possibility of extending the truce.
He said the pause was an opportunity to get humanitarian aid to Gaza and refused to speculate on how long the war between Israel and Hamas would last. Asked at a press conference about his expectations, he stated that Israel’s goal of eliminating Hamas was legitimate, but difficult.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after its fighters killed 1,200 people and took about 240 hostages after breaching security barriers surrounding the Gaza Strip and razing Israeli communities around the blockaded enclave.
Since then, Israel bombed Gaza, killing about 14,000 people, about 40% of them children, according to Palestinian health authorities.
Hundreds of thousands of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, including most of those in its northern half.
Now that the truce has silenced the guns, more help has begun to arrive.
Four tankers with fuel and another four with cooking gas entered the southern Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing early on Saturday, Israeli authorities reported, stressing that they were destined for essential humanitarian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. Gaza Strip, such as hospitals.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said 196 humanitarian aid trucks transported food, water and medical supplies through the Rafah border crossing on Friday, the largest such convoy into Gaza following Israeli bombardment of the territory.
Aid groups have taken advantage of the truce to evacuate patients and health workers from some hospitals in the north that have practically collapsed due to attacks and lack of fuel.
The World Health Organization helped transfer 22 patients from Al Ahli hospital to the south on Friday, its head, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on the X social media platform.
“To cover all health needs in Gaza, much more support is needed and, above all, a sustained ceasefire,” he said.
Source: Ambito
