Agam Berger, Arbel Yehud, Gadi Moses freed in Gaza hostage release
Hamas has set free the next three Israeli hostages under the Gaza ceasefire deal, after chaotic crowds of screaming men mobbed two of the captives.
Hamas set free the next three Israeli hostages under the Gaza ceasefire deal on Thursday, but in a sign of its fragility, Israel briefly suspended the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange, after chaotic crowds of screaming men mobbed two of the captives.
The suspension of the prisoner release came after Hamas, in keeping with last week’s hostage-release event, again made a spectacle. The militant group is trying to use the releases to project its authority after facing an Israeli military campaign that has decapitated its leadership and thinned out its militia.
After 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. Most of the Palestinian prisoners due to be freed Thursday were handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which was facilitating their release.
The latest crisis shows how mediators are walking a fine line to ensure that the ceasefire holds – eventually leading to a permanent end to the fighting.
In addition to the three Israeli hostages, Hamas also released five Thai nationals who were taken in the militant group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that sparked the war.
Hamas released Agam Berger, a 20-year-old female soldier, in the middle of the ruins of Jabalia, a city in northern Gaza that saw fierce fighting in the war. Masked Palestinian fighters escorted Berger, the last female soldier held in Gaza, from a bombed-out building and she waved to a crowd of Palestinians, before entering a vehicle with the Red Cross, which handed her over to Israeli forces.
🎥 The moment Agam was reunited with the IDF after 482 days of being surrounded by terrorists: pic.twitter.com/V7tAtJJkxC
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) January 30, 2025
Hours later, Hamas handed over the other two hostages, Arbel Yehoud, a female civilian whose freedom became a point of tension with Israel, and Gadi Moses, 80, who was taken from kibbutz Nir Oz, to the Red Cross in the middle of a crowd of thousands of Palestinians that blocked the humanitarian organisation’s vehicles, delaying their exit from Gaza. The Red Cross eventually handed them over to Israeli forces.
Yehoud and Moses were set free in the rubble of the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis, the former home of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader Israeli forces killed last October and the architect of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.
After the chaotic scenes in Khan Younis, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at Hamas. “Whoever dares to harm our hostages will pay the price,” he said.
Following the hostage release, a spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing announced the deaths of several of its leaders, including Mohammed Deif, who is believed to have been a key planner of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. The spokesman didn’t say when they had been killed.
Israel said last summer that it had killed Deif, targeting him in a July air strike on western Khan Younis.
Israel and Hamas negotiated the first phase of the ceasefire in Gaza under the agreement that Hamas would release hostages weekly, starting with female civilians. The deal came into effect on Jan. 19. The militant group last weekend released four female Israeli soldiers, contravening the spirit of the deal, mediators said.
Israel, as a result, delayed allowing Palestinians to cross an Israeli-controlled corridor into the Gaza Strip’s north until Hamas freed Yehoud. The sides eventually agreed to add an extra hostage-exchange on Thursday to smooth over the tension.
The jockeying between Israel and Hamas illustrates the fragility of a ceasefire deal that is only in its second week and which U.S. and Arab mediators hope can become the basis of a permanent end to the 15-month fighting in Gaza.
مباشرة Ù„Øظة تسليم المØتجزة الإسرائيلية أربيل يهودا إلى الصليب الأØمر ÙÙŠ #خانيونسpic.twitter.com/3Wpc4c5j36
— #القدس_ينتÙض 🇵🇸 (@MyPalestine0) January 30, 2025
Yehoud was taken from a kibbutz on the edge of Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023. She was being held by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a Hamas ally, which released a video this week to demonstrate she was alive. The group’s fighters appeared Thursday for the release of Yehoud, with people flying the flag of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Berger is the last to be freed of five female soldiers, all either 19 or 20 years old, who were taken from their army base a few hundred meters from Gaza, while conducting mandatory military service.
In the city of Rehovot in central Israel, friends of Berger gathered to watch the first moments of her being freed from captivity. They wore white T-shirts with Berger’s picture reading “now the heart is back to being whole again. We waited for you.”
As Berger appeared on the large screen, her friends began to clap, with some bursting into tears. Some arrived with their hair braided as a gesture for their friend, who braided the hair of other hostages in Gaza.
“It’s exciting. It’s a moment you can’t explain,” said Or Eyov, 25, a friend of Berger’s. After more than 15 months with no public signs of life, she said the moment felt like a rebirth.
“We waited for her so much,” said Lior Paz, a childhood friend of Berger’s who studied music with her in high school in the city of Holon. Paz, whose hair was braided as a tribute to Berger, has campaigned for her return for the past 15 months.
Gadi Moses was taken from his kibbutz Nir Oz in the Hamas-led attack. Moses’ wife, Efrat, was killed in the attack, and his ex-wife, Margalit Moses, was kidnapped and released in an earlier ceasefire deal in November 2023.
The multiphase deal’s protocols call for female hostages – civilians and soldiers – to be released first, followed by elderly and wounded men, and then the bodies of the dead.
As part of the ceasefire deal, Israel released around 110 more Palestinian prisoners on Thursday, including some serving life sentences. This past Saturday, Israeli authorities released 200 prisoners, including some serving life sentences, of whom 70 were handed over to Egypt. Those prisoners followed 90 women and children who were also freed on the first day of the truce.
The initial stage of the ceasefire deal is expected to involve a total of 33 hostages held by Hamas to be handed over across six weeks. The US, Qatar and Egypt, the countries that negotiated the truce, are monitoring its implementation.
Hamas is expected on Friday to name three more hostages to be released, as the deal reverts back to its weekly hostage-exchange timetable and more Palestinian prisoners are also freed.
More than 20 citizens of Thailand and one citizen of the Philippines were freed by Hamas during the November 2023 ceasefire.
As part of the November ceasefire, Hamas also released several Israelis with Russian citizenship as a gesture to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Thai foreign ministry thanked the mediators, including Qatar, Egypt, Iran, Türkey and the US, who helped arrange the release of the Thai hostages.
Dow Jones
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