Hamas releases 24 hostages on first day of Gaza truce (Update 2)

Hamas fighters released 24 hostages on Friday during the first day of the war’s first truce, the Red Cross said, including Israeli women and children and Thai farm workers.

In exchange, 39 Palestinian women and minors detained by Israel were released on Friday, the first of a group of 150 who are due to be freed from Israeli detention under the agreement.

Nine hours after guns fell silent for the first time in seven weeks, the Red Cross said it had begun an operation to facilitate the transfer of hostages in Gaza to Israel in return for Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

Twenty-four hostages were transferred out of Gaza and handed over to Egyptian authorities at the Rafah border crossing, accompanied by eight staff members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in a four-car convoy, the ICRC said.

Qatar, which acted as mediator for the truce deal, said 13 Israelis had been released, some with dual nationalities, plus 10 Thais and a Filipino. Thirty-nine Palestinian women and children were released from Israeli jails in return for the 13 Israelis, Qatar said.

“The deep pain that family members separated from their loved ones feel is indescribable. We are relieved that some will be reunited after long agony,” said Fabrizio Carboni, the ICRC’s regional director for the Near and Middle East.

The Israeli military said the freed hostages had already been brought to Israel.

“The released hostages underwent an initial medical assessment inside Israeli territory. They will continue to be accompanied by IDF soldiers as they make their way to Israeli hospitals, where they will be reunited with their families,” the military said.

Four children and relatives were included with another five elderly women, a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.

“The government of Israel embraces its civilians who returned home. The government of Israel is committed to returning all the hostages and missing,” it said.

Under the terms of the four-day Israel-Hamas truce, 50 women and children hostages are to be released over four days, in return for 150 Palestinian women and children among thousands of detainees in Israeli jails. Israel says the truce could be extended if more hostages are released at a rate of 10 per day.

The first 13 released on Friday were to be exchanged for 24 Palestinian women and 15 teenagers.

A source briefed on the negotiations said the release of the Thai workers, who were all men, was unrelated to the truce negotiations and followed a separate track of talks with Hamas mediated by Egypt and Qatar.

Thai and Filipino farmworkers employed in southern Israel were among around 240 hostages dragged back to Gaza by gunmen when Hamas fighters launched a killing spree on October 7.

Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said in a social media post that 12 Thai workers had been freed, two more than the figure given by the Qataris. No reason for the discrepancy was given.

Earlier on Friday, combat between Israeli troops and Hamas fighters halted for the first time in seven weeks under the truce.

No big bombings, artillery strikes or rocket attacks were reported, although Hamas and Israel both accused each other of sporadic shootings and other violations. Both said the war would resume on full throttle as soon as the truce was over.

UN agencies voiced hope that a shaky truce that began between Israel and Hamas on Friday would allow for a ramping-up of aid and the first flows to northern Gaza in weeks as fresh hospital rescue efforts got under way.

Aid agencies have said they are aiming to deliver supplies to the northern part of the Palestinian enclave where hospitals have collapsed due to bombings and lack of fuel and where there are major concerns about dehydration and disease in a situation described as a siege within a siege.

But they say a more permanent ceasefire is required to deliver the mass amount of aid to address Gaza’s full needs, with nearly three-quarters of the population or some 1.7 million people displaced, thousands killed and many more — both dead and alive — thought to be trapped beneath the rubble.

“The north has suffered brutally so it’s one of our big priorities across U.N. agencies, irrespective of what the delivery is, is to get to the north,” said James Elder, a spokesperson for the U.N. children’s agency in Gaza.

UNICEF is aiming to get 30 trucks a day into Gaza during the truce and is prioritising delivering water and blankets, he said, describing scenes of people drinking salty water and sleeping in their cars with smashed-out windows.

He called for a longer period of sustained peace for children to recover physically and mentally, describing meeting a 7-year-old orphan who kept shutting his eyes so as not to forget his dead parents whose house was bombed.

“We cannot in all decent conscience go from a four or five day pause into killing of children again. I mean, that seems absolutely callous,” he told Reuters.

Asked whether the United Nations had guarantees from Israel that it could deliver aid to the north, Jens Laerke of the U.N. humanitarian office said: “We proceed on the basis of the hope and the expectation that we will reach people in need, where they are.”

Egypt says that during the truce 200 trucks will cross the Rafah crossing daily – more than double the recent average – and about twice the amount of fuel (130,000 litres), but it is not clear how the ramp-up is being managed.

That border crossing, intended for pedestrians, is the only one currently open and logistical limitations, bottlenecks and slow vetting processes have been constraining flows.

WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said the agency was working on further hospital evacuations as soon as possible, voicing concern for some 100 patients and health care workers left in Al Shifa Hospital.

The Palestine Red Crescent said on social media that it had evacuated about 120 people from Ahli Baptist Hospital to Khan Younis in the south. It also received two new ambulances and 85 trucks with aid, it said.

Other aid groups were sceptical that the short pause would make a difference.

“For medical operations, a four-day pause is a band-aid not healthcare. This is not humanitarian access, it’s a joke,” said Joel Weiller, Director General at Medecins du Monde.