Joyous scenes have greeted the release of 20 Israeli hostages by Hamas, and the arrival of the first batch of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees released by Israel, under Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan.
The US president declared the two-year war in Gaza “is over” and, to a standing ovation in the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, said today is "a day of profound joy and soaring hope” and “the historic dawn of a new Middle East".
Who are the released Israeli hostages?
The 20 Israeli hostages, released in two batches this morning, are all men and more than half of them had been taken seized by Hamas at the Nova desert festival on 7 October 2023.
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They included Evyatar David, who was shown emaciated, and digging what he said was his own grave, in a video released over the summer by Hamas that “rattled many people", including Trump, said Bloomberg. Also released was Nvidia employee Avinatan Or: a photo of him on 7 October being torn away from his partner Noa Argamani (who was also taken hostage and released last year) “became an iconic image of the day’s horrors”.
Among the other released hostages were twin brothers Gali and Ziv Berman, brothers Ariel and David Cunio, Omri Miran, who was abducted from his kibbutz in front of his wife and children, and Matan Angrest, an Israeli Defense Force soldier who was captured from his burning tank near the Gaza perimeter fence.
What about those hostages who have died?
There are 28 dead Israeli hostages whose bodies are also due to be returned to Israel under the terms of the peace deal.
This is “the much tougher phase” and “everyone is on edge”, Rotem Cooper, who is waiting to receive the body of his father Amiram, told the BBC. The Israeli Hostage and Missing Families Forum have posted on X that they have learned “only four deceased hostages” will be returned today.
“The act of burial is highly important in Jewish tradition,” said The Times, and “must be returned to the earth as quickly as possible after death”. The absence of a body “has left many hostage families unable to begin the Jewish mourning process”.
What about the Palestinian prisoners?
Under the terms of the peace deal, some 250 Palestinian prisoners serving sentences in Israeli jails, and 1,700 detainees from Gaza, including 22 children, are to be released.
Earlier today, the mood on the Palestinian side was “less one of open celebration, more of confusion”, said Lucy Williamson, the BBC's Middle East correspondent. Waiting relatives “say the speed of this deal means the list of Palestinian prisoners set for release today has been constantly changing overnight”.
At least one bus carrying released Palestinians has already arrived in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank. But it’s thought that the majority of prisoners, rather than detainees, on the list “are to be sent into exile”, rather than returned to Gaza or the West Bank, said The New York Times. It’s not clear in which country “exile” would be.
Thought to be included on the list of prisoners to be released is Iyad Abu al-Rub, an Islamic Jihad commander convicted of orchestrating suicide bombings in Israel that killed 13 people in the early 2000s, and Eham Kamamji, who was arrested in 2006 and has been serving a life sentence for the kidnapping and murder of an Israeli settler. Writer Basem Khandaqji, winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, who was sentenced by Israel to three life terms for his involvement in the Carmel Market suicide bombing in 2004, was also on the list to be freed.
Despite frantic last-minute negotiations, Hamas was unable to secure the release of six “high-profile” Palestinian prisoners, said Middle East Eye. Chief among these is Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences after Israel convicted him in 2004 of multiple counts of murder. Once secretary general of the Fatah political faction, he is “currently the most popular Palestinian political figure, according to numerous polls”, and would be a “shoo-in for the Palestinian presidency if elections were held and he were able to run for office”.
A source close to Barghouti told the news site that, although US envoy Steve Witkoff had signed off on his release, “the Israeli prime minister’s office unilaterally removed his name from the prisoner exchange list at the last minute”.
