Hamas has handed over 13 Israeli hostages and four foreigners to the International Committee of the Red Cross, Qatar’s foreign ministry has confirmed.
The announcement, which came after a dispute about delays to aid supplies bound for the north of the besieged Gaza enclave was resolved by the mediation of Qatar and Egypt.
“13 Israelis and 4 foreigners were received by ICRC and on their way to Rafah,” Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman, Majed Al Ansari, said on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
TV images on Saturday showed Red Cross vehicles at Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
A Palestinian official familiar with the diplomacy said Hamas would continue with the four-day truce agreed with Israel, the first break in fighting in seven weeks of war.
Al Ansari earlier said a brief delay and obstacle to the hostage release were overcome through Qatari-Egyptian contacts with both sides, adding that 39 Palestinians were going to be released by Israel in exchange.
Accusations and denials
Among the Israeli hostages, eight were said to be children and five others women, Al Ansari said, while the Palestinians to be released from Israeli prisons would consist of 33 children and six women.
Earlier the armed wing of Hamas accused Israel of stopping aid trucks from entering northern Gaza, allowing only half of them in — which Israel denied.
Under the truce deal between Israel and Hamas, mediated by Qatar, a total of 50 hostages are to be exchanged for 150 Palestinian prisoners over four days.
In the first exchange on Friday, 13 Israeli women and children were released out of around 240 hostages captured by Hamas fighters on a killing spree in southern Israel on October 7.
Families shared emotional photos of their reunions after almost 50 days in captivity in Gaza.
Nine-year-old Ohad Munder ran down a hospital corridor in Israel into his father’s open arms, footage released by the hospital showed.
He and three other children released at the same time were in relatively good condition, Gilat Livni, the centre’s Director of Paediatrics told reporters.
“I dreamt we came home,” another hostage, four-year-old Raz Asher, said sitting in her father’s arms on a hospital bed after she and her mother and younger sister were freed.
“Now the dream came true,” her father, Yoni, replied.
Twenty-four jailed Palestinian women and 15 teenagers were released from Israeli jails.
The latest setback came just hours after Egypt said it had received “positive signals” from all parties over a possible extension of the truce deal.
Diaa Rashwan, the head of Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS), said Cairo was holding extensive talks with all parties to reach an agreement which would mean “the release of more detainees in Gaza and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.”
Israel and Hamas have said hostilities would resume as soon as the truce ends.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after its fighters killed 1200 people and took about 240 hostages after breaking through security barriers around the Gaza Strip and rampaging through Israeli communities in an orgy of murder, rape and kidnapping.
Since then, Israel has rained bombs on Gaza, killing what Palestinian officials estimate at 14,000 people, roughly 40 per cent of them children.
For many of the 2.3 million people who live in the tiny Gaza Strip, the pause in the near-constant air and artillery strikes has offered a first chance to safely move around, take stock of the devastation, and seek access to aid imports.
‘The cost of this war’
“We hope the truce will continue and be permanent, not just four or five days. People cannot pay the cost of this war,” said Ayman Nofal, in a street market in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.
Earlier, Israel said fifty trucks carrying food, water, shelter equipment, and medical supplies, were deployed to the northern Gaza Strip and to shelters in non-evacuated areas of the Palestinian enclave.
This was the first time since the start of the war that a significant amount of aid was deployed to northern Gaza, according to the Israeli Defence Ministry agency that coordinates with the Palestinians.
-with AAP
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