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27-11-2023
JERUSALEM/ GAZA CITY: Fourteen Israeli hostages and three foreign nationals have been released by Hamas.
Among those freed is four-year-old Abigail Idan, who has dual Israeli and US nationality.
In exchange, Israel has released 39 Palestinian prisoners, its prison service says
Hamas says it is seeking to extend the current four-day truce with Israel and increase the number of hostages released.
Gazans have been using the pause in fighting to get desperately-needed supplies of fuel, food and medicine.
Hamas’s attacks on 7 October killed 1,200 people, with about 240 taken hostage
Since then, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says more than 14,500 people have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory campaign
When Palestinians cheered this evening in the streets of Ramallah in the West Bank for the release of 39 more prisoners under the hostage deal, Abdurahman Al-Zaghal from Silwan village in east Jerusalem was not one of those freed from jail because he was under house arrest and receiving treatment.
Al-Zaghal, said to be aged 14, was shot in the head and hit by shrapnel in the lower part of his body in August this year as he went out to buy bread, according to his uncle. Israeli authorities said he was trying to throw a petrol bomb at a settlement post in the area.
Al-Zaghal’s trial was held in absentia as he was still in intensive care at an Israeli hospital in west Jerusalem at the time.
He was seen today removing an electronic bracelet from his leg at the hospital where he’s receiving medical treatment.
Benjamin Netanyahu has said the return of hostages from Gaza “stirs the soul” and repeated a vow to secure the release of those still being held.
“We brought back another group of hostages this evening women and children and we are moved from the depths of our hearts, the entire nation, when we see this reuniting of families,” he said in a statement.
He added that he and President Biden discussed the release of four-year-old Israeli-American Avigail Idan, both of whose parents were killed in the 7 October attacks, in a phone call earlier today.
“What a joy it is to see her with us,” he said. “But, on the other hand, how sad it is that she is returning to a reality in which she has no parents. She has no parents but she has an entire nation that embraces her and we will take care of all her needs.” (Int’l News Desk)
