Hamas yesterday released three Israeli hostages in Gaza and Israel freed some 369 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in exchange, after mediators helped avert a collapse of the fragile ceasefire.
The three Israelis, Iair Horn, Sagui Dekel Chen and Sasha (Alexander) Troufanov, were led onto a stage with Hamas fighters armed with automatic rifles standing on each side of them at the site in Khan Younis, live footage showed, before they were taken back into Israel by Israeli forces.
Shortly afterwards, buses carrying freed Palestinian prisoners and detainees departed Israel’s Ofer jail in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The first bus arrived in Ramallah to a cheering crowd, some waving Palestinian flags.
“We didn’t expect to be freed, but God is great, God set us free,” said Musa Nawarwa, 70, from the West Bank town of Bethlehem, who was serving two life terms for killings of Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.
Buses carrying some of the hundreds of Palestinian freed prisoners and detainees, some flashing victory signs as they hung from the windows, arrived later at the European Hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
Some of the Palestinians were serving long prison terms for involvement in suicide bombings and other attacks that killed dozens of Israelis during the second Palestinian uprising in 2000. Others were jailed for killing Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank or without charge.
Some, like Hassan Ewis, will be allowed to return to their homes. Others, such as his brother, are expected to be deported to Egypt.
Ewis said prison conditions were difficult and Palestinians were deprived of sufficient food.
Some freed Palestinians are returning to an enclave they have not seen for years, before it was blasted into rubble by Israeli air strikes and shelling in 15 months of war.
But most were rounded up after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
The ceasefire’s second phase is meant to usher in negotiations to return the remaining living hostages among the 251 seized that day, and complete an Israeli military withdrawal before a final end to the war and the reconstruction of Gaza.
Argentina-born Iair Horn, 46, was taken captive together with his younger brother Eitan. Horn appeared to have lost considerable weight in captivity.
The swap of the three Israelis for the 369 Palestinians allayed growing alarm that the ceasefire agreement could unravel before the end of the 42-day first stage of the truce pact in effect since January 19.
Prospects for the ceasefire surviving have been shaken by US President Donald Trump’s call for Palestinians to be resettled permanently out of Gaza, and for the tiny enclave to be turned over to the US to be redeveloped as a seaside resort. That idea has been rejected out of hand by Palestinian groups, Arab states and Western allies of Washington.
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