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On Saturday, Hamas published the first two of the expected six of Israeli hostages due to the exempted captivity in Gaza, because the uncertain truce is left to employ near the end of its first phase.
Avera Menongista, a 39-year-old Ethiopian-Israeli man described by his family as mentally ill and held since 2014, and Tal Shoham, 40, was released for a complex stored ceremony in Rafah, southern Gase, to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Menngista held Hamas after wandering in Gaza, while Shoham was captured during the attack of the Palestinian militant group on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The Israeli army confirmed their release, saying that the Red Cross was transported to southern Israel.
Eliya Cohen, 27 years, Omer Shem Tov, 22 and Omer Weenkert, 23 should be published later on Saturday, together with Hisham al-Sayed, 36, Palestinian Bedouin with Israeli nationalities, which she likes Menongist, is considered mentally ilpal has been held since 2015.
In exchange for the release of all six, Israel needed 600 Palestinian prisoners for free, including hundreds held without charges or trials, and 110 who served his life or long sentences after being convicted in military prisons for violence against Israelis.
Including today’s replacement, Hamas will publish 29 hostages, four of which are dead, in exchange for more than 1,600 Palestinian prisoners.
Six are the last of the living hostages to be replaced by hundreds of Palestinian prisoners as part of the first phase of the truce, which should be completed on Thursday by release of four additional bodies.
The second phase, for which the negotiations were still serious, could see a permanent end of the 15 months of war in exchange for some 60 remaining hostages, which include male soldiers, and also many of which are assumed to be dead.
The six-week first phase approached the demolition, which encouraged intervention from the US, Egypt and Qatar to help maintain the road.
In the last flashpoint, Hamas announced this week an unidentified body instead of in Shiri Bibas, a 32-year-old Israeli mother whose two young children were also trapped in October 7. Their bodies were released earlier this week.
Late on Friday, Hamas released another body, and after that Israeli forensic pathologists identified as Bibas, mother Kfir and Ariel. Hamas blamed the chaos inside the broken Palestinian enclave for the surrender of the wrong body.
In Israel, the capture of the Bibas family – the father of children was released in February in the first phase of exchange – became a symbol and Hamas brutality in the attack that initiated the war in Gaza and the failure of Israeli authorities to protect them.
The Israeli army announced on Friday that the autopsy showed that both children were killed during their captivity, instead of being killed by Israeli air strike, as Hamas said since November 2023.
“The terrorists did not shoot in two young boys – they were killed with their bare hands,” said the Israeli military spokesman, rear Admiral Daniel Hagari. “Later they committed horrific ranks to conceal these crimes.”
Despite the first phase of the tribute, Israel sent a low -level negotiating team in Cairo to talk about the second phase, but a small progress has been made so far. Hamas pointed to his willingness to continue the negotiations in the second phase.
On October 7, Hamas killed at least 1,200 people in Israel in his cross -border raid, and took about 250 hostages, according to local officials. The Israeli retaliation killed nearly 50,000 Palestinians, health officials in Gaza said and left the enclave – home more than 2.3 million Palestinians – in the squeeze of a humanitarian disaster.
