Hamas delays release of more hostages on second day of cease-fire
The expected release of a second group of hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel was delayed for hours Saturday as the militant group accused Israel of not complying with the deal's terms. The last-minute snag created a tense standoff on the second day of what was meant to be a four-day cease-fire.
Until Saturday afternoon, it still appeared everything was going according to plan. Aid trucks were entering Gaza, Hamas handed a list of more than a dozen hostages slated for release to mediators Qatar and Egypt, and Israel's Prison Service prepared a list of dozens of Palestinian prisoners for release.
But by nightfall, as the hostages should have emerged from Gaza, Hamas announced that it was delaying the release over what it said were Israeli truce violations. The group alleged the aid deliveries permitted by Israel fell short of what was promised, and that not enough of the aid was reaching northern Gaza — the focus of Israel's ground offensive and the main combat zone. Hamas also said not enough veteran prisoners were freed in the first swap on Friday .
“This is putting the deal in danger and we have spoken mediators about that,” Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official, said in Beirut.
While uncertainty around the details of the exchange remained, there was some optimism, too, amid scenes of joyous families reuniting on both sides. On the first day of the four-day cease-fire, Hamas released 24 of the roughly 240 hostages taken during its Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war , and Israel freed 39 Palestinians from prison. Those freed in Gaza were 13 Israelis, 10 Thais and a Filipino.
Earlier Saturday, Hamas officials provided conflicting reports on whether 13 or 14 hostages were set for release. With three Palestinian prisoners to be freed for each hostage under the deal, the corresponding number of freed Palestinian prisoners was to be 39 or 42.
Overall, Hamas is to release at least 50 Israeli hostages, and Israel 150 Palestinian prisoners, during the four-day truce — all woman and minors.
Israel has said the truce can be extended an extra day for every additional 10 hostages freed — something U.S. President Joe Biden said he hoped would occur.
Separately, a Qatari delegation arrived in Israel on Saturday to coordinate with parties on the ground and “ensure the deal continues to move smoothly,” according to a diplomat briefed on the visit. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss details with the media.
The start of the pause brought the first quiet for 2.3 million Palestinians reeling from relentless Israeli bombardment that has killed thousands, driven three-quarters of the population from their homes and leveled residential areas. Rocket fire from Gaza militants into Israel went silent.
War-weary Palestinians in northern Gaza, the focus of Israel’s ground offensive, returned to the streets, crunching over rubble between shattered buildings and at times digging through it with bare hands. At the Indonesian hospital in Jabaliya, besieged by the Israeli military earlier this month, bodies lay in the courtyard and outside the main gate.
For Emad Abu Hajer, a resident of the Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza City area, the pause meant he could again search through the remains of his home, which was flattened in an Israeli attack last week.
He found the bodies of a cousin and nephew, bring the death toll in the attack to 19. With his sister and two other relatives still missing, he resumed his digging Saturday.
“We want to find them and bury them in dignity,” he said.
The United Nations said the pause enabled it to scale up the delivery of food, water, and medicine to the largest volume since the resumption of aid convoys on Oct. 21. It was also able to deliver 34,078 gallons of fuel — just over 10% of the daily pre-war volume — as well as cooking gas, a first since the war began.
In the southern city of Khan Younis on Saturday, a long line of people with containers waited outside a filling station. Hossam Fayad lamented that the pause in fighting was only for four days.
“I wish it could be extended until people's conditions improved,” he said.
For the first time in over a month, aid reached northern Gaza. The Palestinian Red Crescent said 61 trucks carrying food, water and medical supplies headed there on Saturday, the largest aid convoy to reach the area yet.
The U.N. said it and the Palestinian Red Crescent were also able to evacuate 40 patients and family members from a hospital in Gaza City, where much of the fighting has taken place, to a hospital in Khan Younis.
The relief brought by the cease-fire has been tempered, however. For Israelis, by the fact that not all hostages will be freed. For Palestinians, by the brevity of the pause.
At least two Palestinians were injured Saturday at a tense West Bank checkpoint where Israel was to free prisoners. Israeli security forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets at Palestinians gathered at Beitunia checkpoint. It was not clear how the two were injured.
First Hostages Freed
After nightfall Friday, a line of ambulances emerged from Gaza through the Rafah Crossing into Egypt carrying the freed hostages. The freed Israelis included nine women and four children nine and under.
The released hostages were taken to three Israeli hospitals for observation. The Schneider Children's Medical Center said it was treating eight Israelis — four children and four women — and that all appeared to be in good physical condition. The center said they were also receiving psychological treatment, adding that "these are sensitive moments" for the families.
At a plaza dubbed "Hostages Square" in Tel Aviv, a crowd of Israelis celebrated the news.
The hostages included multiple generations. Nine-year-old Ohad Munder-Zichri was freed along with his mother, Keren Munder, and grandmother, Ruti Munder. The fourth-grader was abducted during a holiday visit to his grandparents at the kibbutz where about 80 people — nearly a quarter of all residents of the small community — are believed to have been taken from.
The plight of the hostages has raised anger among some families that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not doing enough to bring them home.
Hours later, 24 Palestinian women and 15 teenage boys held in Israeli prisons in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem were freed. In the West Bank town of Beitunia, hundreds of Palestinians poured out of their homes to celebrate, honking horns and setting off fireworks that lit up the night sky.
The teenagers had been jailed for minor offenses like throwing stones. The women included several convicted of trying to stab Israeli soldiers, and others who had been arrested at checkpoints in the West Bank.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, an advocacy group, Israel is currently holding 7,200 Palestinians, including about 2,000 arrested since the start of the war.
A Longer Peace?
The war erupted when several thousand Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking scores of hostages, including babies, women and older adults, as well as soldiers.
Majed al-Ansari, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry of Qatar, said the hope is that momentum from the deal will lead to an end to the violence. Qatar served as a mediator along with the U.S. and Egypt.
Israeli leaders have said they would resume fighting eventually and not stop until Hamas, which has controlled Gaza for the past 16 years, is crushed. Israel has set the release of all hostages as the second goal of the war, and officials have argued that only military pressure can bring them home.
At the same time, the government is under pressure from the families of the hostages to make the release of the remaining captives the top priority, ahead of any efforts to end Hamas control of Gaza.
The Israeli offensive has killed more than 13,300 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza government. Women and minors have consistently made up around two-thirds of the dead, though the latest number was not broken down. The figure does not include updated numbers from hospitals in the north, where communications have broken down.
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