Gaza hostage release back on track after row over aid is settled
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Relatives of 21-year-old Maya Regev take part in a protest asking for the release of Israeli hostages, in Tel Aviv, on Nov 25, 2023.
PHOTO: AFP
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GAZA/JERUSALEM - A Gaza hostage release deal was back on track on the night of Nov 25, after a row over aid supplies to the north of the besieged enclave was resolved following mediation by Qatar 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.
“After a delay, obstacles to the release of prisoners were overcome through Qatari-Egyptian contacts with both sides, and 39 Palestinian civilians will be released tonight, while 13 Israeli hostages will leave Gaza in addition to seven foreigners,” Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman, Mr Majed Al Ansari, said on social media.
The armed wing of Hamas said earlier it was delaying Nov 25’s scheduled second round of hostage releases until Israel met conditions including committing to let aid trucks into northern Gaza.
Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan said only 65 out of 340 aid trucks that had entered Gaza since Nov 24 had reached northern Gaza, which was “less than half of what Israel agreed on.”
Al-Qassam Brigades also said Israel had failed to respect the terms of the Palestinian prisoner releases. Mr Qadura Fares, the Palestinian commissioner for prisoners, said Israel had not released detainees by seniority, as was expected.
Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter, a member of Israel’s security Cabinet, told Channel 13 News that Israel was “abiding by the deal” with Hamas that Qatar had mediated.
Israel has said 50 trucks with food, water, shelter equipment and medical supplies had deployed to northern Gaza under UN supervision, the first significant aid delivery there since the start of the war.
The row over the truce dented hopes of a smooth second day of hostage and prisoner releases, after 13 Israeli women and children were freed by Hamas on Nov 24.
Israeli army spokesman Olivier Rafowicz told French television Israel was strictly honouring the terms of the truce, and said the military had carried out no attacks or offensive operations in Gaza on Nov 25.
“There is a delay... in the release of the hostages. I do not want in any way to get into what the armed wing of the terrorist group Hamas is saying,” Mr Rafowicz told BFM TV. “This situation is obviously being managed at the highest level in Israel.”
Under the truce deal between Israel and Hamas, mediated by Qatar, a total of 50 hostages are to be exchanged for 150 Palestinian prisoners, some of them convicted on weapon charges and violent offences, over four days.
In the first exchange on Nov 24, a killing spree in southern Israel on Oct 7
Israel has said the ceasefire could be extended if Hamas continues to release hostages at a rate of at least 10 a day.
A Palestinian source has said up to 100 hostages could go free.
Israel and Hamas have said hostilities will resume as soon as the truce ends, although US President Joe Biden said on Nov 24 there was a real chance of extending the truce.
Ms Asil al-Titi, 23, is greeted by friends and family shortly after she was released from an Israeli jail on Nov 24, 2023.
PHOTO: AFP
‘I’m not dead’
Israel said Hamas militants killed at least 1,200 people when they stormed into border towns in southern Israel on Oct 7 and took about 240 hostages.
Since then, Israel has rained bombs on Gaza, killing more than 14,000 Gazans, roughly 40 per cent of them children, according to the Palestinian health authorities.
Hundreds of thousands of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, including most of those in the enclave’s northern half.
“I’m not dead, I’m not dead,” freed Thai farm worker Vetoon Phoome
The families of those freed on Nov 24 expressed mixed emotions
“I’m excited for the families who today are going to hug their loved ones,” Ms Shelly Shem Tov, mother of Mr Omer Shem Tov, 21, said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12, although he was not among those released on Nov 24.
“I am jealous, and I am sad, mostly sad that Omer is still not coming home,” she said.
Gaza gets aid
Aid has also begun to pour into Gaza since the start of the ceasefire.
Four tankers of fuel and another four containing cooking gas entered the southern Gaza Strip via the Rafah Crossing early on Nov 25.
The Israeli authorities said these were meant for essential humanitarian infrastructure in Gaza, such as hospitals.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said 196 trucks of humanitarian aid, including food, water and medical supplies, were delivered through Rafah on Nov 24, the biggest aid convoy into Gaza since Hamas’ assault on Israel and Israeli bombardment of the territory in retaliation.
About 1,759 trucks have entered the enclave since Oct 21, it said.
Aid groups, meanwhile, have used the truce to evacuate patients and health workers from some northern hospitals that have all but collapsed.
The World Health Organisation helped transfer 22 patients from Al Ahli hospital to the south on Nov 24, its chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on the social media platform X.
“To meet all the health needs in Gaza, much more support is needed and above all sustained ceasefire,” he said. AFP, REUTERS
