Hamas releases three hostages but keeps one’s wife, children

Gaza crowds were more controlled after an unruly transfer days earlier drew an outcry. The wife and children of one of the three men released on Saturday are said to remain captive. Israel released more Palestinian prisoners.

Released Israeli hostage Ofer Kalderon reunited with his children at Sheba hospital in Ramat Gan on Saturday. Picture: Maayan Toaf / Israeli Government Press Office / AFP

Hamas released three more Israeli hostages in a relatively subdued event on Saturday, after a chaotic handover earlier in the week sparked an outcry that threatened to snarl the Gaza ceasefire deal.

The militant group first freed Yarden Bibas, 35, whose wife and children remain hostages in Gaza, and Ofer Kalderon, 54, an Israeli-French citizen whose two children were also kidnapped but released in November 2023.

Mr Bibas and Mr Kalderon were released in the city of Khan Younis, where Hamas choreographed an elaborate transfer on Thursday that saw large, surging mobs that Israel said endangered the lives of the hostages.

The third hostage Hamas freed later on Saturday is 65-year-old Israeli-American Keith Siegel, who was kidnapped from his home on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched the attacks on Israel that sparked the 15-month war in Gaza.

Palestinian militant group Hamas fighters escort Israeli-French hostage Ofer Kalderon before handing him over to a Red Cross team in Khan Younis for transfer to Israeli authorities on Saturday as part of fourth hostage-prisoner exchange. Picture: Eyad Baba / AFP

Hamas handed over Mr Siegel to the Red Cross on a stage set up for the handover in Gaza Port.

Mr Siegel was seized with his wife Aviva Siegel, who was released in the previous ceasefire deal in late 2023.

Israeli hostage Yarden Bibas is escorted by Hamas fighters on a stage before the handover. Picture: AFP

Yarden Bibas and his wife Shiri Bibas, who is still captive along with their sons Kfir and Ariel, also shown. Picture: supplied

Israel later on Saturday demanded information from mediators who brokered the ceasefire in Gaza about the fate of three family members of Mr Bibas.

“Yarden has returned home. But his wife Shiri and his children Ariel and Kfir have not. We have been searching for them for a long time, tracking their traces and investigating their fate,” Gal Hirsch, Israel’s hostage co-ordinator, said in a statement reported by AFP.

“The Bibas family ... has been living in constant fear for their lives for a long time ... we continue to demand information about their condition from the mediators.”

Like Mr Bibas, his wife Shiri and their two boys were seized by militants during Hamas’s attack on Israel and taken to Gaza.

Their two children, Ariel and Kfir, were four years and nine months old, respectively, when taken hostage.

The family became a symbol of the Oct. 7 attack, and videos of Shiri and her two red-headed children being taken were some of the first to be widely seen. Hamas said in November 2023 that they were killed in an Israeli bombing. The Israeli military said it investigated the claim but hasn’t confirmed their deaths.

Israel initially delayed the release of Palestinian prisoners under the exchange deal as it sought assurances the scenes wouldn’t be repeated.

This time, the crowds appeared to be smaller and more controlled. The two men were led one by one to a stage where they waved and then were taken to the Red Cross before meeting Israeli forces and reaching Israel.

A former Palestinian prisoner released by Israel is hugged by members of his family as he disembarks a Red Cross bus after arriving in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank on Saturday. Picture: AFP

As part of the agreement, the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt was opened on Saturday, after being closed for many months, to allow injured Palestinians to leave for treatment. No Hamas fighters who took part in the Oct. 7 attacks will be allowed to exit.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said 50 Palestinian patients went through the Rafah crossing to Egypt on Saturday.

Egyptian state-linked channel Al-Qahera News showed footage of the first of 50 evacuees and 53 companions, including a child with an autoimmune disease, crossing the border into Egypt to receive treatment.

“From the medical files, 50 were approved by Egypt. We hope for this number to increase,” said Muhammad Zaqout, the director of Gaza hospitals.

Members of Israeli hostage Ofer Kalderon's family react upon hearing the news of his release. Picture: AFP

Mr Siegel’s wife, Aviva, was released in the brief November 2023 ceasefire without her husband. Since then, she has been waiting for his release. Keith Siegel, who was born in North Carolina, immigrated to Israel in his early 20s with his brother.

He was last seen in a video released by Hamas in April 2024 in which he broke down in tears as he spoke, describing how he found the protests calling for his release in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem encouraging.

Hamas handed Mr Siegel over to the Red Cross at Gaza Port, and he was taken to Israeli forces inside Gaza and was then to be taken to an army facility near the border community of Re’im for an initial check-up.

Mr Calderon was being taken by an Israeli Air Force helicopter from an army facility near the Gaza border to a hospital in central Israel to meet his family. Mr Bibas was meeting his family at the army facility near Re’im before being taken by helicopter as well to a hospital in central Israel.

Mr Siegel’s release left two additional living American hostages in Gaza. One is a male civilian and the other is an Israeli soldier. The bodies of four dead American hostages are also still in Gaza.

People next to a poster of Israeli hostage Keith Siegel watch on a screen at ‘hostage square’ in Tel Aviv as hostages are released. Picture: AFP

Before Saturday’s releases, 79 hostages taken in the attack remained in Gaza, most Israelis. They include more than 30 who Israel has concluded are dead, though Israeli and US officials privately believe the number of dead is much higher. Three additional hostages, taken before the Hamas-led attacks, bring the total to 82.

Mr Kalderon was last seen alive by hostages freed in November 2023. His two children, Sahar and Erez, who were freed then, have campaigned for his return.

The initial stage of the multiphase ceasefire deal involves a total of 33 hostages to be released over six weeks. As part of the agreement, Israel was expected to release more Palestinian prisoners on Saturday, including some serving life sentences.

A bus carrying Palestinian prisoners arrived at the West Bank town of Beitunia where the inmates disembarked after they were freed from Ofer prison later on Saturday, an AFP journalist reported.

The inmates departed from the Israeli prison in the occupied West Bank after the three Israeli hostages were handed over by Hamas in Gaza.

An AFP correspondent reported that the bus had reached Beitunia near Ramallah where prisoners disembarked and were greeted by cheering crowds of relatives.

Three buses carrying Palestinian prisoners also arrived in Khan Younis on Saturday, an AFP correspondent reported. The prisoners, dressed in grey prison uniforms, were greeted by hundreds of Gazans who gathered around the buses as they approached the southern Gaza city’s European Hospital.

Palestinian militant group Hamas fighters secure an area before handing over the two Israeli hostages to a Red Cross team in Khan Younis in Gaza on Saturday. Picture: AFP

Jockeying between Israel and Hamas over hostage releases in recent days has illustrated the fragility of a deal only in its second week and which mediators hope can become the basis of a permanent end to the fighting in Gaza. Hamas has attempted to use the hostage releases as a way to project strength after Israel’s military campaign culled its leadership and fighters.

The deal calls for female hostages – civilians and soldiers – to be released first, followed by elderly and wounded men and then the bodies of the dead. The deal came into effect on January 19, but the militant group last weekend failed to release a female civilian Israel thought would be freed, contravening the expected protocol of hostage releases, mediators said.

Israel, as a result, delayed allowing Palestinians to cross an Israeli-controlled corridor into the Gaza Strip’s north until Hamas freed the woman, Arbel Yehoud. The sides eventually agreed to add an extra hostage exchange on Thursday to smooth over the tension, but Israel briefly suspended the release of Palestinian prisoners that day after Palestinian crowds mobbed two of the three Israeli hostages during their release.

Mediators scrambled to resolve the issue. The Israeli prime minister’s office said it had received assurances from the intermediaries over the safe exit of the hostages due to be released next and allowed the Palestinian prisoners to be released.

Earlier this week, Hamas handed Israel a list detailing which of the 33 hostages in the first phase of the deal remain alive. Israel has said that the majority are alive. In addition to the three Israeli hostages freed Thursday, Hamas released five Thai nationals who were also taken in the Oct. 7 attacks.

Israel and Hamas have agreed that on day 16 of the ceasefire, which is Monday, they will start negotiating a permanent end to the war and the release of all remaining living hostages. Some far-right Israeli lawmakers have threatened to quit the government if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu goes through with that phase of the deal, risking the collapse of his coalition.

The war has proved to be the deadliest ever round of violence between Israelis and Palestinians. More than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Palestinian health authorities, who don’t say how many were combatants. The Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel left around 1200 people dead and some 250 taken hostage.

Carrie Keller-Lynn contributed to this article.

The Wall Street Journal