Hamas hands over Israeli soldier in latest round of swaps under ceasefire deal
Agam Berger was captured alongside four other female soldiers when Hamas militants raided Israel on October 7 2023.
Hamas handed captive Israeli soldier Agam Berger over to the Red Cross in the Gaza Strip, the first of eight hostages set to be released on Thursday as part of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas is set to free two more Israeli hostages as well as five Thai captives, and Israel is to release another 110 Palestinian prisoners, in the third such exchange since fighting paused earlier this month.
Hours after Hamas freed Ms Berger, 20, crowds gathered for further releases.
Chaotic scenes unfolded as thousands of people pressed around a handover site in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, in front of the destroyed home of killed Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar.
Hundreds of militants from Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group arrived with a convoy in a show of force, and thousands of people gathered to watch, some from the rooftops of bombed-out buildings.
Hamas had earlier handed Ms Berger to the Red Cross after parading her in front of a crowd in the heavily destroyed urban refugee camp of Jabaliya in northern Gaza. The Israeli government later confirmed that Berger was with its forces.
She was abducted alongside four other female soldiers, who were freed on Saturday.
Under the ceasefire, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have jubilantly returned to northern Gaza over the past three days.
However, their homecoming has been bittersweet as nearly everyone has friends or relatives who died, and many northern neighbourhoods have been transformed into an apocalyptic landscape of devastation by more than 15 months of war.
The truce is aimed at winding down the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and Hamas, whose October 7 2023 attack into Israel sparked the fighting.
Red Cross vehicles arrived at Jabaliya, where hundreds of masked militants and onlookers had gathered.
The Israelis set to be released are: Arbel Yehoud, 29; Berger, 20 – who was abducted along with four other female soldiers who were freed Saturday; and Gadi Moses, an 80-year-old man.
There was no official confirmation of the identities of the Thai nationals who will be released.
Twenty-three Thais were among more than 100 hostages released during a week-long ceasefire in November 2023. Israel says eight Thais remain in captivity, two of whom are believed to be dead.
Of the people set to be released from prisons in Israel, 30 are serving life sentences after being convicted of deadly attacks against Israelis.
Zakaria Zubeidi, a prominent former militant leader and theatre director who took part in a dramatic jailbreak in 2021 before being rearrested days later, is also among those set to be released.
The United States, Egypt and Qatar, which brokered the ceasefire after a year of tough negotiations, resolved the dispute with an agreement that Ms Yehoud would be released on Thursday.
Another three hostages, all men, are set to be freed on Saturday along with dozens more Palestinian prisoners.
On Monday, Israel began allowing Palestinians to return to northern Gaza, the most heavily destroyed part of the territory, and hundreds of thousands streamed back. Many found only mounds of rubble where their homes had been.
In the first phase of the ceasefire, Hamas is set to release a total of 33 Israeli hostages, including women, children, older adults and sick or wounded men, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Israel says Hamas has confirmed that eight of the hostages to be released in this phase are dead.
Palestinians have cheered the release of the prisoners, whom they widely see as heroes who have sacrificed for the cause of ending Israel’s decades-long occupation of lands they want for a future state.
Israeli forces have meanwhile pulled back from most of Gaza, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to return to what remains of their homes and humanitarian groups to surge assistance.
The deal calls for Israel and Hamas to negotiate a second phase in which Hamas would release the remaining hostages and the ceasefire would continue indefinitely. The war could resume in early March if an agreement is not reached.
Israel says it is still committed to destroying Hamas, even after the militant group reasserted its rule over Gaza within hours of the truce.
Hamas started the war when it sent thousands of fighters storming into Israel. The militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250.
Israel’s ensuing air and ground war among the deadliest and most destructive in decades.
More than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed, over half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were militants.
The Israeli military says it killed more than 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence, and that it went to great lengths to try to spare civilians.
