EXPLANER
On the first day, 24 captives held in Gaza were released on Friday, while a total of 39 women and children were released from Israeli prisons.
After 48 days of war and bombing that cost thousands of lives, a four-day truce in the Israel-Gaza war began Friday with the release of captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Here’s what we know about day one:
Release of captives and prisoners
- During the four-day truce, at least 50 captives are expected to be released, leaving around 190 captives in Gaza. In exchange, 150 Palestinian prisoners should be released.
- On Friday, 24 captives held in Gaza, including 10 Thai nationals, one Filipino and 13 Israeli women and children, were released. In exchange, 24 Palestinian women – including two 18-year-olds – and 15 boys detained in Israel were released.
- The captives were transferred out of Gaza and handed over to Egyptian authorities at the Rafah border crossing, accompanied by eight members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in a four-car convoy, the ICRC said.
- Earlier on Friday, at 7:00 a.m. local time (05:00 GMT), fighting between Israeli troops and Hamas fighters ended for the first time in seven weeks under the truce. No significant bombardment, artillery or rocket attacks have been reported, although Hamas and Israel have accused each other of sporadic fire.
- Both declared that the war would resume in full force as soon as the truce ended.
On the first day, here’s how things went:
Thailand:
- Prime Minister of Thailand Srettha Thavisin was the first to announce the release of some captives. He said his government had received confirmation that some Thai workers detained in Gaza had been released by Hamas.
- A total of 10 Thai nationals were released. At least 23 Thai workers were reportedly taken captive to Gaza during the October 7 attack, in addition to the 32 Thai workers who were killed in the assault.
- The release of the Thais, all of whom were men, appears unrelated to the truce negotiations and follows another round of negotiations with Hamas, brokered by Egypt and Qatar.
- The Thai nationals “will be taken to Shamir Medical Center (Assaf Harofeh), where they will be greeted by embassy officials. They must be under medical supervision for a period of 48 hours, without access to outsiders,” the Thai Foreign Ministry said.
Israel:
- About half an hour later (around 2:23 p.m. GMT), the other captives were freed, Hamas officials told AFP.
- At 6:06 p.m. in Gaza (4:06 p.m. GMT), the ICRC confirmed that 24 captives had been released.
- At 7:17 p.m. (5:17 p.m. GMT), the Israeli army said that his strengths were currently with the freed captives. “They will continue to be accompanied by (Israeli) soldiers as they head towards Israeli hospitals, where they will be reunited with their families,” they added.
- A full list of Israeli captives released on Friday is available here.
- Speaking to Tel Aviv Tribune, Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy said most Israelis were watching images of the freed captives on their television screens.
- “There is a mix of emotions, on the one hand there is the simplest happiness for families reunited… but every Israeli knows that this is only the beginning,” Levy said.
- “I think the feeling of the nation right now is very clear and very general: the Israelis want the return of all the hostages at all costs, with the exception of very radical right-wing groups… and that means a cease and desist. -the prolonged fire, because everyone understands that it is impossible to return to the country. war with the same intensity and we expect more agreements,” he explained.
At the time when 13 of our relatives entered Israeli territory.
Welcome home 💙
📸@IDF pic.twitter.com/reXgBLLeFx
– Israel ישראל 🇮🇱 (@Israel) November 24, 2023
Palestine:
- At 7:34 p.m. (5:34 p.m. GMT)Qatar has confirmed the release of 39 Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons.
- As part of a truce negotiated between Hamas and Israel, the group was transferred to Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank, where families gathered outside eagerly await their return home.
- Marah Bakeer, arrested in 2015 when she was 16, has been released from Ofer Prison. She was among the first group of Palestinian women and children released under the truce agreement.
- Bakeer told Tel Aviv Tribune that many released prisoners needed medical treatment. “All prisoners suffered a high level of medical neglect (while in detention),” she said. Baker was shot in the arm during his arrest.
- A full list of Palestinian prisoners released on Friday is available here.
- According to Tel Aviv Tribune senior political analyst Marwan Bishara, this could be the start of something positive.
- “If the deal works today, that means it could definitely work in the coming days,” Bishara said.
- “This is the other side of the darkness that has descended on Gaza and, to some extent, Israel over the last 50 days…so it is important for us to examine this, however short and complicated be it, and to see it as what is possible and why it is so important to end this war,” he added.
International aid
What is the situation in Gaza?
- In the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, the streets are filled with people venturing out of their homes and shelters into a landscape of buildings flattened into piles of rubble.
- Displaced families with young children carried their belongings in plastic bags, hoping to at least temporarily return to the homes they had abandoned earlier in the war.
- “I am now very happy, I feel comfortable. I’m going home, our hearts are rested,” said Ahmad Wael, smiling as he walked with a mattress balanced on his head. “I am very tired of sitting without food and water. There (at home) we can live, drink tea, bake bread.
- In the northern Gaza combat zone, seen across the fence in southern Israel, there was no sign of the warplanes that ravaged the skies for weeks, explosions on the ground or trails of Hamas rocket fire. A single plume of smoke was visible early in the afternoon.
- Columns of Israeli tanks moved away from the northern end of the Gaza Strip in the morning, while aid trucks arrived from Egypt at the southern end.