KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — Hamas-led militants freed the first of eight hostages on Thursday in the latest release since a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip took hold earlier this month. Israel was expected to release another 110 Palestinian prisoners.
The truce is aimed at winding down the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and Hamas, whose Oct. 7, 2023, attack into Israel sparked the fighting. It has held despite a dispute earlier this week over the sequence in which the hostages were released.
Hours after Hamas freed female Israeli soldier Agam Berger, crowds gathered for further releases.
Chaotic scene unfolded as thousands of people pressed around a handover site in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, in front of the destroyed home of slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
Footage showed Arbel Yehoud, a 29-year-old hostage, being led through the crowd by militants toward waiting Red Cross vehicles. There was no clear view of other hostages, or of her entering the car.
Hundreds of militants from Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group arrived with a convoy in a show of force, and thousands of people gathered to watch, some from the tilted rooftops of bombed-out buildings.
Hamas had earlier handed Berger, 20, to the Red Cross after parading her in front of a crowd in the heavily destroyed urban refugee camp of Jabaliya in northern Gaza. The Israeli government later confirmed that Berger was with its forces.
Berger was among five young, female soldiers abducted in the Oct. 7 attack. The other four were released on Saturday.
People cheered, clapped and whistled at a square in Tel Aviv where supporters of the hostages watched Berger’s handover on big screens next to a large clock that’s counted the days the hostages have been in captivity. Some held signs saying: “Agam we’re waiting for you at home.”
The other two Israelis set to be released Thursday are Yehoud and Gadi Moses, an 80-year-old man. Five Thai nationals are also expected to be freed, but have not been officially identified.
A number of foreign workers were taken captive along with dozens of Israeli civilians and soldiers during Hamas' attack. Twenty-three Thais were among more than 100 hostages released during a weeklong ceasefire in November 2023. Israel says eight Thais remain in captivity, two of whom are believed to be dead.
Of the people set to be released from prisons in Israel, 30 are serving life sentences after being convicted of deadly attacks against Israelis. Zakaria Zubeidi, a prominent former militant leader and theater director who took part in a dramatic jailbreak in 2021 before being rearrested days later, is also among those set to be released.
Israel said Yehoud was supposed to have been freed Saturday and delayed the opening of crossings to northern Gaza when she was not.
The United States, Egypt and Qatar, which brokered the ceasefire after a year of tough negotiations, resolved the dispute with an agreement that Yehoud would be released Thursday. Another three hostages, all men, are set to be freed Saturday along with dozens more Palestinian prisoners.
On Monday, Israel began allowing Palestinians to return to northern Gaza, the most heavily destroyed part of the territory, and hundreds of thousands streamed back. Many found only mounds of rubble where their homes had been.
Ceasefire holds for now but next phase will be harder
In the first phase of the ceasefire, Hamas is set to release a total of 33 Israeli hostages, including women, children, older adults and sick or wounded men, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Israel says Hamas has confirmed that eight of the hostages to be released in this phase are dead.
Palestinians have cheered the release of the prisoners, who they widely see as heroes who have sacrificed for the cause of ending Israel’s decades-long occupation of lands they want for a future state.
Israeli forces have meanwhile pulled back from most of Gaza, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to return to what remains of their homes and humanitarian groups to surge assistance.
The deal calls for Israel and Hamas to negotiate a second phase in which Hamas would release the remaining hostages and the ceasefire would continue indefinitely. The war could resume in early March if an agreement is not reached.
Israel says it is still committed to destroying Hamas, even after the militant group reasserted its rule over Gaza within hours of the truce. A key far-right partner in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is already calling for the war to resume after the ceasefire’s first phase.
Hamas says it won't release the remaining hostages without an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Tens of thousands killed
Hamas started the war when it sent thousands of fighters storming into Israel. The militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250.
Israel’s ensuing air and ground war among the deadliest and most destructive in decades. More than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed, over half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were militants.
The Israeli military says it killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence, and that it went to great lengths to try to spare civilians. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because its fighters operate in dense residential neighborhoods and put military infrastructure near homes, schools and mosques.
The Israeli offensive has transformed entire neighborhoods into mounds of gray rubble, and it’s unclear how or when anything will be rebuilt. Around 90% of Gaza’s population has been displaced, often multiple times, with hundreds of thousands of people living in squalid tent camps or shuttered schools.
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Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, and Krauss from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writer Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel contributed.
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