Israel-Hamas war: 11 more hostages to be freed
Eleven more hostages will be released in Gaza this week with family members identifying three of the captives. Follow updates.
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Israeli hostages Arbel Yehoud, 19, and Agam Berger, 20, will released by Hamas alongside grandfather Gadi Moses, 80, in the early hours of Friday morning Australian time.
The three Israeli captives will be joined by five unnamed Thai nationals according to hostage families, who consented to the release of their names despite the Israeli government not officially making the information public yet.
Three more hostages, all Israeli men, will be released early Sunday Australian time making a total of 11 hostages to return home in coming days.
Ms Yehoud was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023, where her family had lived for three generations.
Her boyfriend Ariel Cunio remains a hostage in Gaza.
Unlike most hostages, Ms Yehoud is being held by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group who attempted to claim the Centre for Technology, Science and Space was a soldier in order to barter more Palestinian prisoners in exchange for her release.
Ms Berger, a surveillance soldier, was taken from the Nahal Oz Israeli Defence Force base where she was stationed just two days prior to her capture.
Mr Moses was also taken from Kibbutz Nir Oz.
His partner Efrat Katz was killed in the attack and his stepdaughter Doron Katz-Asher was kidnapped along with her daughters Raz, five, and Aviv, two who were all released shortly after their capture.
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MUSK’S BIG CALL ON GAZA CONDOM PROGRAM
The White House justified a sweeping freeze in US overseas assistance by citing a $US50 million ($A80m) condom distribution program in the Gaza Strip, without offering evidence to back up the claim.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the spending was discovered in Mr Trump’s first week including by the new Department of Government Efficiency led by tech billionaire Elon Musk.
Musk’s initiative and the budget office “found that there was about to be 50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza,” Leavitt told her debut press conference.
“That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money,” she said.
She did not provide more details and it was not immediately possible to verify the account independently.
Meanwhile, the White House has invited Benjamin Netanyahu to meet with Donald Trump on February 4, the Israeli PM’s office has announced.
A White House official told The Times of Israel an invitation had been extended and that the meeting would take place early next week – but a date has not been finalised for the sit-down.
SELFLESS ACT AFTER HOSTAGE’S BROTHER CONFRONTS POLLIES
The heartbroken brother of an Israeli hostage who is believed to be dead demanded to know why ceasefire negotiations were so protracted – while also volunteering to go to the back of the line so families of living captives can be reunited first.
Israeli officials have been reaching out to families after Hamas confirmed eight of the remaining 26 hostages to be released in phase one of the ceasefire were dead.
Danny Elgarat, whose brother Itzik is among the hostages, went before Israeli parliament on Tuesday local time to let fly at the politicians who he said cost lives.
“My brother was left to die,” Mr Elgarat said.
“We know more today about the list that Hamas sent. I won’t speak for others, but we’ll probably receive him as one of the slain.
“It was possible to save him, if you’d accepted the earlier deal.
“Who will be held accountable for this decision that killed 40 hostages?”
In an interview with Israeli outlet Ynet, Mr Elgarat showed incredible selflessness when it came to the fate of his brother.
“We should bring home the living first, and after that, in the end, we’ll return the fallen,” Mr Elgarat said.
“If someone isn’t alive, does it matter what (phase of the deal) he’s ([released) in?
“He’s not alive anymore.”
Yizhar Lifshitz, whose father Oded Lifshitz, 84, is among the hostages, has been told to expect the worst as his elderly dad has not since shortly after he was captured.
“The last sign of life for him was on Day 25,” Mr Lifshitz told Ynet.
“They took him, and he’s basically disappeared since then, from us and probably from Hamas too. It doesn’t bode well.”
Israeli Defence Force spokesman Daniel Hagari said Sunday there are “grave concerns” for mother Shiri Bibas and her two small children, Ariel and baby Kfir.
However, dad Yarden is believed to be still alive.
300,000 PALESTINIANS RETURN TO GAZA
Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have returned to the north of Gaza after Israel and Hamas reached a deal for the release of another six hostages.
The Israeli government also said eight of the hostages held in Gaza who were due for release in the truce’s first phase are dead.
The fragile ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas is intended to bring an end to more than 15 months of war that began on October 7, 2023.
Israel had prevented Palestinians from returning to northern Gaza, accusing Hamas of violating the terms of the truce, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said late Sunday they would be allowed to pass after a new agreement was reached.
Hamas had said blocking the returns amounted to a truce violation.
A sea of people moved through the now open Netzarim Corridor into the north, watched over by Israeli tanks.
Some pulled carts weighed down with mattresses and other essentials. Others carried what belongings they could.
Late Monday the Hamas government in Gaza said “more than 300,000 displaced” had returned during the day “to the governorates of the north”, an area of Gaza severely battered by the war.
After reaching the area, many people began embracing each other.
“Welcome to Gaza,” read a newly-erected banner hanging above a dirt road in front of a collapsed building in Gaza City.
According to the Hamas-run government’s media office, 135,000 tents and caravans are needed in Gaza City and the north to shelter returning families.
Still, Hamas called the return “a victory” for Palestinians that “signals the failure and defeat of the plans for occupation and displacement”.
The comments came after US President Donald Trump floated an idea to “clean out” Gaza and resettle Palestinians in Jordan and Egypt, drawing condemnation from regional leaders.
President Mahmud Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, issued a “strong rejection and condemnation of any projects” aimed at displacing Palestinians from Gaza, his office said.
THREE MORE HOSTAGES TO BE FREED
Two Israeli women, Arbel Yehud and Agam Berger, are to be released on Thursday, local time, along with a third unidentified hostage, following negotiations between Hamas and Israel.
Their upcoming release was announced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as part of the truce agreement with Hamas.
According to Israel, Arbel Yehud, as a woman and a civilian, should have been released last Saturday in the second prisoner exchange of the ceasefire deal.
Arbel Yehud (29) was taken hostage with her boyfriend, Ariel Cunio, in Kibbutz Nir Oz on 10/7. Her home was pillaged, her dog was killed, and her brother Dolev was murdered while defending their kibbutz.
— Dr. Alexandra HerzogðŸŽ—ï¸ (@alexandratali25) January 24, 2025
She is a loving aunt and a gentle soul.
Say her name. #bringthemhomenowpic.twitter.com/i5lFXcCNCM
When she did not appear, the Israeli government accused Hamas of violating the agreement and in retaliation prevented tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians from returning to the north of Gaza.
Following Hamas’s pledge to release Yehud and the other hostages this week, the blockage was lifted.
Family members speaking to AFP have described Arbel Yehud, who turned 29 in captivity, as a gentle young woman with a magnetic smile.
She was captured at the same time as her boyfriend Ariel Cunio, 26. Her brother Dolev, 35, was killed on October 7, 2023. All three lived in Nir Oz kibbutz.
Yehud worked in the kibbutz’s education system before becoming a guide at the nearby GrooveTech centre dedicated to technology and space.
Yehud was hiding in the safe room at the home of David Cunio, Ariel’s brother. To force them out, the attackers set fire to the house.
Once free, she will meet for the first time her fourth nephew, after her brother Dolev’s wife gave birth to him while Yehud was in captivity.
When she was kidnapped, she had just returned from a long trip to Latin America with her partner, with whom she had been for five years.
Two male members of the family, Ariel and his brother David, are still in captivity.
Agam Berger, now 20, was abducted along with four other soldiers while doing her military service along the border with Gaza.
In a video published on social network Telegram, she was seen being taken into a car in her pyjamas.
Agam Goldstein-Almog, a hostage freed during the week-long truce in November 2023, told her family that Berger, a practising Jew, respected the Sabbath during her detention, refusing on Saturdays to cook and clean for her captors.
She was also a source of comfort for the other hostages, and had plaited their hair.
Berger, who has a twin sister, has played the violin since childhood and comes from Holon, a Tel Aviv suburb.
EIGHT HOSTAGES DUE FOR RELEASE ‘DEAD’
Eight of the hostages due for release in the first phase of a truce deal between Israel and Hamas are dead, Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said.
“The families have been informed of the situation of their relatives,” Mencer told reporters, without providing the names of the deceased.
That means that of the 26 hostages yet to be freed under the first phase of the agreement, only 18 are still alive.
The truce deal, announced earlier in January after months of fruitless negotiations, took effect on January 19, bringing to a halt more than 15 months of war sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.
Under the first phase of the agreement, 33 hostages held by militants in Gaza are to be released in exchange for more than 1,900 Palestinians held by Israel.
Seven Israeli women have been released since the start of the truce, as have 290 Palestinian prisoners.
EU AGREES TO REDEPLOY MISSION AT GAZA BORDER
European Union foreign ministers on Monday agreed to restart a monitoring mission at the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, the bloc’s top diplomat said. “This will allow a number of injured individuals to leave Gaza and receive medical care,” foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas wrote on X.
GAZA WAR TOLL ‘PASSES 47,000’
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Monday the death toll from the war with Israel had reached 47,317, with numbers rising despite a ceasefire as new bodies are found under the rubble.
The ministry said hospitals in the Gaza Strip had received 11 bodies in the past 24 hours – nine bodies recovered after the truce, and two new fatalities.
It did not specify how the new deaths occurred.
The ministry said the war had also left 111,494 people wounded. Some Gazans have died from wounds inflicted before the ceasefire, with the health system in the Palestinian territory largely destroyed by more than 15 months of fighting and bombardment.
The ministry again reiterated its appeal for Gazans to submit information about dead or missing people to help update its records.
The war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas was sparked by the militant group’s October 7, 2023 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people on the Israeli side, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
– with Agence France-Presse (AFP)
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