Fourth Gaza ceasefire swap completed

JERUSALEM:

Hamas freed three Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for more than 180 Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli custody in the fourth such swap under a ceasefire deal aimed at ending the war in Gaza.

Hostages Ofer Kalderon and Yarden Bibas were paraded on stage by Hamas fighters before being handed over to the Red Cross in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis. American-Israeli Keith Siegel was freed in a similar ceremony at Gaza City’s port in the north.

The Israeli military later confirmed that all three were back in Israel.

Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum hailed their release as “a ray of light in the darkness”.

“I hope that this is a sign of the rebirth of the people of Israel, not just of Ofer, not just of the hostages,” Kalderon’s uncle Shemi told AFP, overcome with emotion.

Later in the day, a bus carrying released Palestinian prisoners was greeted by a cheering crowd in the West Bank city of Ramallah, while three others were met by hundreds of well-wishers in Khan Yunis.

In Ramallah, the bus struggled to make its way through the crowds as it arrived from the Israeli-run Ofer Prison.

Several of the freed inmates were hoisted onto the shoulders of well-wishers, including an elderly man who raised his crutches over his head in triumph.

“I need a great deal of composure to control myself, to steady my nerves, to absorb this overwhelming moment,” said one released prisoner, Ata Abdelghani, as he prepared to meet his now 10-year-old twin sons for the first time.

After holding the hostages for more than 15 months, militants in Gaza began releasing them on January 19 under the terms of the ceasefire deal with Israel.

Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad have so far handed over 18 hostages to the International Committee of the Red Cross in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, many of them women and minors.

A total of 183 prisoners were freed Saturday, all of them Palestinian except for one Egyptian.

Hamas sources said a fifth hostage-prisoner exchange would take place next Saturday.

During their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which started the Gaza war, militants abducted Siegel from kibbutz Kfar Aza, and Bibas and Kalderon from kibbutz Nir Oz.

Militants took a total of 251 people hostage that day. Of those, 76 remain in Gaza, including at least 34 the military says are dead. Those seized include Bibas’s wife Shiri and their two children, whom Hamas has declared dead, although Israeli officials have not confirmed that.

Bibas’s sons — Kfir, the youngest hostage, whose second birthday was in January, and his older brother Ariel, whose fifth birthday was in August — have become symbols of the hostages’ ordeal.

Footage released by the Israeli military showed Bibas being reunited with his sister and father, who held him in a lengthy embrace.

In a statement issued via the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the Bibas family said “a quarter of our heart has returned to us after 15 long months”.

“But the home remains incomplete,” the family said, adding they would “continue with hope and the call for the return of Shiri, the children, and all the hostages”.

Israel’s hostage coordinator, Gal Hirsch, said the government continued “to demand information” from the ceasefire’s brokers about the rest of the Bibas family.

Hundreds had gathered in the Tel Aviv plaza dubbed “Hostage Square” to watch live television coverage of the latest releases.

Sighs of relief ran through the crowd as the three were freed and handed over to the Red Cross, though the mood was mostly sombre.