Jerusalem, Jan 19 (EFE).- Although it began three hours late, the first day of the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip succeeded with the release of three female civilian Israeli hostages and 90 Palestinian prisoners, most of them women and children.
British-Israeli Emily Damari, 28, and Israelis Doron Steinbrecher, 31, and Romi Gonen, 24 – the former two kidnapped from the Kfar Aza kibbutz and the latter from the Nova music festival in Reim – were handed over in a central square in Gaza City by the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, to the Red Cross, which in turn made them available to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
“The three released hostages have arrived at the initial reception point in southern Israel, where they will be reunited with their mothers,” the IDF confirmed when they arrived at the meeting point in Reim, on the border with Gaza, where they received preliminary medical attention before being transferred by helicopter to Sheba hospital in Tel Aviv to receive medical treatment and meet relatives.
There has not been a day like this since November 2023, when Israel and Hamas agreed to a week-long truce in which 105 captives taken by the Islamists in the Oct. 7 attack were released in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
This time the agreement stipulates a first phase of 42 days of ceasefire in which 33 hostages will be released—with priority given to children, women, and the elderly—in exchange for more than 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, many of them held since Oct. 7.
During those six weeks, negotiations will also take place for a second phase of the truce, which would complete the release of all Israeli hostages in Gaza and lay the foundations for the end of the war.
“Romi, Doron and Emily— an entire nation embraces you with congratulations on your homecoming. This moment was achieved thanks to the sacrifice and fighting of our heroic fighters—the heroes of Israel. I promise: We will bring everyone home,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote on X after their release.
For the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents the majority of relatives of Israelis held in Gaza, their release after 471 days in captivity was “a moment of hope and triumph of the human spirit,” while President Isaac Herzog sent a hug to the families.
With their release, 91 captives from Oct. 7 remain inside the enclave, 34 of them confirmed dead, in addition to three who had been held since 2014: two civilians and one soldier confirmed dead.
Israeli troops rescued the body of Sgt Oron Shaul on Sunday in Jabalia, a second soldier who fell in the war in the Strip in 2014 and who Hamas had held.
The IDF will “be determined to return going forward to fighting,” warned Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, who boasted of having killed “approximately 3,000” Hamas militants in their siege and scorched earth offensive in northern Gaza since last October.
In total, Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, including nine children and 69 women, all of them with less than three years behind bars, and convicted of non-bloody crimes.
Hours before their release, they were all rounded up at Israel’s Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank near Ramallah, from where 78 of them were transferred to the West Bank and 12 to the Silwan neighborhood in East Jerusalem, the Israeli Prison Service confirmed.
Among those released were Jalida Jarrar, 62, a feminist activist and member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the sister of Hamas politician Saleh Arouri, Dalal Jaseeb, and Abla Abdelrasoul, 68, wife of PFLP leader Ahmad Saadat.
Agreement a year late
In his personal assessment of the 15 months of war, the spokesman for Hamas’ military wing, Abu Obeida, stressed that the agreement could have been signed a year ago had it not been for Netanyahu’s political ambitions, a belief also held by many Israelis and loved ones of the hostages.
The Hamas leader assured that the group is committed to fulfilling all commitments and implementing all agreement phases. At the same time, Israel has left open the possibility of returning to war, something demanded by the two far-right parties in the government coalition: Religious Zionism and Jewish Power. The latter, led by extremist Itamar Ben Gvir, temporarily resigned from the government until fighting resumed in Gaza.
The ceasefire was on the verge of falling apart. Netanyahu delayed the start of the ceasefire, scheduled for 06:30 GMT, arguing that Hamas had not revealed the list of the hostages it would release, which was eventually resolved, and ordered the end of military operations in the enclave at 09:15 GMT.
During the almost three-hour delay of the implementation of the ceasefire, the Gaza Civil Defense confirmed that 19 Palestinians were killed and 36 wounded in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, where some 47,000 have been killed since Oct. 7, 2023.
More than 630 trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered Gaza following the ceasefire coming into effect to tend to the “staggering” humanitarian needs of survivors, reported the UN. EFE
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