Militants in the Gaza Strip released eight hostages on Thursday, handing them over to the Red Cross amid chaotic crowds as part of a swap that is set to see 110 Palestinians released from Israeli prisons later in the day.
Agam Berger, a 20-year-old soldier, was handed over first at a site in the heavily destroyed urban refugee camp of Jabaliya in northern Gaza, followed hours later by two more Israelis and five Thai farm workers who were handed over amid a chaotic crowd in the city of Khan Younis.
It’s the third such exchange since a ceasefire took hold in the Gaza Strip earlier this month.
The tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is aimed at ending the war in Gaza and securing the release of dozens of hostages held by the militant group, as well as hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned or detained by Israel.
Under the ceasefire, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have jubilantly returned to northern Gaza over the past three days. However, their homecoming has been bittersweet as nearly everyone has friends or relatives who died, and many northern neighborhoods have been transformed into an apocalyptic landscape of devastation by more than 15 months of war.
Here’s the latest:
JERUSALEM — Israel’s president thanked the Thai government for its support as he met with the Thai ambassador Thursday, ahead of the release of five Thai hostages from captivity in Gaza.
The Thai government confirmed Thursday that five Thai hostages were released from Gaza. The hostages, who were pulled from the farming communities in southern Israel where they worked as agricultural laborers on Oct. 7, 2023, were among 31 Thais taken by Hamas.
President Isaac Herzog said in a statement posted to X that he told Pannabha Chandraramya, the ambassador of Thailand to Israel, that “the people of Israel are very moved by the release of our Thai brothers from the hell of captivity.”
He thanked the Thai government for its support and vowed to continue trying to secure the release of Thai hostages who remain in Gaza.
Twenty-three others were already released. Another two have been confirmed dead, and the status of one remaining person is not clear.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has put the release of Palestinian prisoners on hold until the “safe release” of hostages is assured after a chaotic handover in Gaza.
Netanyahu demanded that mediators intervene after some hostages released Thursday were led through a rowdy crowd of thousands by masked militants.
Israel was supposed to release 110 Palestinian prisoners later Thursday, including around 30 serving life sentences for deadly attacks against Israelis.
TEL AVIV, Israel — “We’re here and we’re never leaving you,” Agam Berger’s mother, Merav, told her daughter in the moments of their initial reunion on Israeli soil after Agam’s release on Thursday from Hamas captivity.
Berger, 20, was among five young female soldiers abducted when militants overran the Nahal Oz military base in the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, killing over 60 soldiers there. The other four were released Saturday.
The family was reunited at a specially prepared reception area in a military base near the Gaza border. A pale looking Berger wiped away tears as she sat on her mother’s lap and held her father’s hand, as seen in footage released by the Israeli army.
From the military base, Berger was flown to a hospital in central Israel, where she will meet her fellow released soldiers.
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the chaotic scenes at the site of a second hostage release in Gaza on Thursday.
Seven hostages were handed over to the Red Cross in Khan Younis and were then transferred to Israeli forces, the Israeli military said. Their release was delayed after armed militants struggled to contain the large Palestinian crowds that gathered around the Red Cross cars. The hostages were eventually led through the crowd surrounded by a ring of gunmen.
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