CAIRO/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Hamas released Israeli hostages Iair Horn, Sagui Dekel Chen and Sasha (Alexander) Troufanov in Gaza on Saturday and Israel began freeing some 369 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in exchange, after mediators helped avert a ceasefire collapse.
The three Israelis were led onto a stage with Palestinian Hamas militants armed with automatic rifles standing on each side of them at the site in Khan Younis, live footage showed, before they were taken into Israel by Israeli forces.
Shortly afterwards, the first bus carrying freed Palestinian prisoners and detainees departed Israel’s Ofer jail in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, live footage showed. The bus arrived in Ramallah to a cheering crowd, some waving Palestinian flags.
“We didn’t expect to be freed, but God is great, God set us free,” said Musa Nawarwa, 70, from the West Bank town of Bethlehem, who was serving two life terms for killings of Israeli soldiers in the West Bank. He is a former commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militant group.
Argentina-born Iair Horn, 46, was taken captive together with his younger brother Eitan. Horn appeared to have lost considerable weight in captivity.
“Now, we can breathe a little. Our Iair is home after surviving hell in Gaza. Now, we need to bring Eitan back so our family can truly breathe,” Horn’s family said in a statement.
The swap of the three Israelis for the 369 Palestinians allayed growing alarm that the ceasefire agreement could unravel before the end of the 42-day first stage of the truce pact in effect since January 19, after 15 months of devastating war.
In what has become known as Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, people broke into cheers and tears when they heard the Red Cross was on its way to deliver the three to Israeli military forces in the Gaza Strip.
They appeared relieved to see that the trio was in apparently better physical condition than another three freed last week who looked weak and emaciated.
Residents of Israeli kibbutz communities near the Gaza border lined the road cheering and waving Israeli flags as the vehicles carrying the hostages out of Gaza passed by.
Dekel Chen, a U.S.-Israeli, Troufanov, a Russian Israeli, and Horn along with his brother Eitan were seized in Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of the communities near Gaza’s border that were overrun by Hamas gunmen on October 7, 2023.
Some of the dozens of masked Islamist Hamas fighters deployed at the handover site carried rifles seized from the Israeli military during the October attack, Hamas sources said.
On the handover stage in Khan Younis, the hostages were made to give short statements in Hebrew and militants presented Horn with an hourglass and photo of another Israeli hostage still in Gaza and his mother, reading “time is running out (for the hostages still in Gaza)”.
Troufanov was abducted with his mother, grandmother and girlfriend – all of whom were released during a brief November 2023 pause in hostilities. His father was killed in the attack on Nir Oz, one of the worst-hit communities, where one in four people either died or were taken hostage.
On October 7, Dekel Chen, 36, left his pregnant wife and two little daughters in the family safe room to go out and fight gunmen rampaging through the kibbutz. With his release, he will meet his youngest daughter for the first time.
Nineteen Israeli and five Thai hostages have been released so far, with 73 still in captivity, around half of whom have been declared dead in absentia by Israeli authorities.
THREATS
Hamas had earlier threatened not to release more hostages after it accused Israel of violating the terms of the ceasefire, drawing counter threats of a resumption of fighting from Israel.
The gaunt appearance of the three hostages freed last week and accounts of abuse by other hostages released since January 19 have set off Israeli protests demanding the hawkish, far-right government stick to the ceasefire and proceed to the next stage to bring all remaining hostages home.
Prospects for the ceasefire surviving have also been clouded by U.S. President Donald Trump’s call for Palestinians to be moved permanently out of Gaza, and for the enclave to be turned over to the U.S. to be redeveloped. That call was rejected by Palestinian groups, Arab states and Western allies.
Hamas agreed last month to hand over 33 Israeli hostages, including women, children and sick, wounded and older men, in return for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, during a six-week truce during which Israeli forces would pull back from some of their positions in Gaza.
The ceasefire’s second phase would usher in negotiations to return remaining hostages and complete the Israeli military withdrawal before a final end to the war and the reconstruction of Gaza, which now lies largely in ruins, facing shortages of food, running water, electricity and habitable housing.
Israel invaded the coastal enclave after the Hamas-led October 2023 attack, killing about 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies, and taking 251 as hostages.
Israel’s subsequent military campaign has killed over 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to Palestinian health ministry figures, and left most of its 2.3 million people homeless.
(Reporting by James Mackenzie, Addional reporting by Nuha Sharaf in Jerusalem, Yigal Elimelech in Tel Aviv and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; writing by Michael Georgy; editing by Edwina Gibbs, Kirsten Donovan and Mark Heinrich)
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