The first hostages kidnapped by Hamas on Israeli soil and taken to the Gaza Strip were released on Friday under the terms of the agreement negotiated in particular by Qatar, a few hours after the entry into force of a truce between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement.
What there is to know
- The truce went into effect Friday at 7 a.m. local time (12 a.m. Eastern). It provides for the release of 13 hostages – women, children and young people under the age of 19 – around 4 p.m. local time (9 a.m. Eastern time), followed in the evening by the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israel , the exact number of which was not specified.
- With a ratio of one hostage to three Palestinians, the exchange should involve a total of 50 hostages for 150 Palestinians at the end of this four-day truce, which could be extended.
- From sunrise, even before the truce began, thousands of Palestinians displaced by the conflict flocked to the roads in the south of the territory to “go home”.
- The bombings stopped in Khan Younes, in the south of the small besieged territory where the inhabitants who fled the surrounding villages or the North shelled by the Israeli army came out en masse from the hospitals and schools where they had found refuge.
- The truce agreement also provides for the daily entry, via the Rafah crossing, of trucks of humanitarian and medical aid, fuel and gas into the Gaza Strip, which has been under a “complete siege” since October 7. the part of Israel.
- Calm also reigns Friday in the border area between southern Lebanon and northern Israel, where exchanges of fire have taken place daily in recent weeks between the Israeli army and the powerful Lebanese movement Hezbollah, ally of Hamas.
Balance sheets
- According to a latest report released Thursday by the Hamas government, 14,854 people have been killed in Israeli bombings on the Gaza Strip since October 7, including 6,150 children and 4,000 women.
- On the Israeli side, the Hamas attack left 1,200 dead, mainly civilians killed on October 7, according to the authorities. According to the army, 68 soldiers have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war.
This truce offers respite to the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, besieged and bombarded since October 7 by the Israeli army, for the first time in seven weeks of war.
Qatar, a key mediator with Egypt and the United States, obtained an agreement on Wednesday on a renewable four-day truce during which 50 hostages held in Gaza must be released as well as 150 Palestinians detained in Israel.
Israeli hostages as well as Thais were released on Friday, according to sources close to the Islamist movement.
Two sources close to Hamas claimed that hostages had been handed over in the Gaza Strip to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), with a view to their return to Israel.
Thailand also announced that 12 of its nationals held hostage had been released by Hamas.
The war was sparked by the unprecedented bloody attack carried out on October 7 by Hamas on Israeli soil.
In retaliation, Israel relentlessly bombed the Palestinian territory, placed under siege, and launched a ground offensive there on October 27 in order to “eliminate” Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007.
The Israeli army estimates that around 240 people were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 and then taken to Gaza, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made their release a prerequisite for any ceasefire.
But international NGOs, the UN and many foreign capitals continued to call for a pause in the fighting or a cease-fire, in particular to deliver emergency aid to the population surviving in poor conditions. disastrous humanitarian efforts.
The “humanitarian pause” came into effect at 7 a.m. (12 a.m. Eastern Time) and Qatar indicated Thursday that a first group of 13 women and children were to be “released around 4 p.m. (9 a.m. Eastern Time). from the east) “.
At midday, a list of 39 names of Palestinian prisoners, 15 children and 24 women, freed in exchange for the hostages, was released by the Commission responsible for prisoners within the Palestinian Authority.
The ICRC “will receive the hostages one by one, or in groups, will take them across the border” with Egypt at the Rafah crossing point then “will entrust them to Israeli forces,” said Ziv Agmon, advisor in charge of the file to the ICRC. Prime Minister’s office, at the press center set up in Tel Aviv to monitor this operation.
According to an Egyptian security source, the hostages must then leave for Israel from the Egyptian airport of al-Arich, in northern Sinai. Unconfirmed information on the Israeli side.
Finally, “they will be reunited with their families after their arrival” in an Israeli hospital, said Ziv Agmon.
“I cry, I laugh”
In occupied East Jerusalem, Palestinian Samira Douayyat spoke of the possible release of her daughter Shourouk, 26, who will have served half of her 16-year prison sentence. “I cry, I laugh, I tremble,” she told AFP.
Israel has released a list of 300 Palestinians likely to be released in total if the truce is extended, including 33 women and 267 young people under the age of 19. Among these detainees, 49 are members of Hamas.
“We set the condition that […] Palestinian women and children prisoners” be released “in order of seniority” in detention, said Bassem Naïm, a senior Hamas executive.
At first light, when the incessant airstrikes for nearly 50 days had died down, like the rocket fire towards Israel from Gaza, tens of thousands of Palestinians in the south of the Gaza Strip had already gathered their personal belongings to return to their villages.
Omar Jibrine, 16, had found refuge with eight other members of his family at Nasser hospital in the town of Khan Younès.
A quarter of an hour before the truce even came into force, he took the road towards his village a few kilometers away: “I’m going home,” he told AFP.
PHOTO IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA, REUTERS
The Israeli army considers the northern Gaza Strip, from which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled to the south, as a combat zone.
But as cars and carts set off, leaflets in Arabic launched from the air by the Israeli army warned: “The war is not over yet.”
“Returning to the northeast prohibited,” the leaflets claimed.
The Israeli army considers the northern Gaza Strip, from where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled to the south, as a combat zone, saying that this part of the territory, where Gaza City is located, is home to the center of Hamas infrastructure.
The international community welcomed the truce agreement, seeing it as a first step towards a possible lasting ceasefire.
“Next phases”
At the end of this truce, the Israeli government and the army committed to “continue” the fighting against Hamas, classified as a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States, its main ally, and the European Union.
“Taking control of the northern Gaza Strip is the first step in a long war and we are preparing for the next phases,” army spokesman Daniel Hagari said.
The leader of Hamas in exile in Qatar, Ismaïl Haniyeh, affirmed Friday that “the enemy bet on recovering the hostages thanks to the barrel of its rifles, to killings and to genocide”, but “that after 50 days of crimes and horror, the enemy had to submit to the conditions of resistance” (Hamas, Editor’s note).
“Hamas reaffirms its commitment to the agreement” on the truce and exchange, “as long as the enemy sticks to it,” he added.
PHOTO AMMAR AWAD, REUTERS
According to Israeli authorities, 1,200 people, the vast majority civilians, were killed during the attack carried out by Hamas against Israel.
In retaliation, Israel relentlessly bombed the Gaza Strip, where 14,854 people, including 6,150 children, were killed, according to the Hamas government.
Entry of humanitarian trucks
Since October 9, Israel has also placed the small territory, already subject to an Israeli blockade since 2007, in a state of “complete siege”, cutting off deliveries of electricity, water, food, medicine and fuel.
International aid, the entry of which is subject to the green light from Israel, arrives in dribs and drabs via Egypt.
The truce is expected to allow more aid convoys into the small, crowded territory, where the UN says 1.7 million of the 2.4 million people have been displaced by the war.
On Friday, “three trucks carrying 150,000 liters of fuel and four trucks of gas entered” the Gaza Strip via Rafah, “or 84 tons,” Waël Abou Omar, the point’s communications director, told AFP. crossing Rafah, Palestinian side.
PHOTO SAID KHATIB, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Additionally, a total of 230 trucks containing food aid are expected to enter during the day.
According to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), 160,000 liters of fuel are needed every day to ensure “only basic humanitarian operations”.
This aid is intended only for the southern Gaza Strip and is being delivered to the UN and the Red Crescent, officials said.
But the truce remains “insufficient” to bring in the necessary aid, international NGOs stressed, calling for a real ceasefire.