Hamas is treating women and children ‘like loot’ says IDF

With just hours to go before the pause was to end, Hamas said that an agreement had been reached to prolong it by 48 hours under the existing terms.

A helicopter ferrying released Israeli hostages lands in Tel Aviv on Monday night. Picture: Getty Images

Eleven Israeli women and children were handed over to the Red Cross in Gaza on Monday night, in the final exchange of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas before a two-day extension agreed at the 11th hour takes effect.

For the second time since the initial ceasefire began, the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners was almost derailed by last-minute disagreements between the two sides.

After receiving Hamas’s list of those to be freed, Israel protested that the group had for a second time breached a promise not to release children without mothers that were taken hostage with them. The final list of nine children and two women, both mothers of abducted children, was handed over hours after the exchange should have already been in motion.

Among the hostages released by Hamas on Monday were several children, including Emma and Yuli Cunio, who are twins aged three. All the children released last night were freed while their ­fathers remained captive.

The 11 Israelis freed included Emma and Yuli’s mother, Sharon, 33. Their father, David, 34, remains a hostage. Also freed were Karina Engelbert, 51, and her daughters, Mika, 18, and Yuval, 11. Their father, Ronen Engel, 55, was not. Sahar, 16, and Erez Kalderon, 12, were released. Their father, Ofer, 53, also remains a hostage.

Or Yakov, 16, and Yagil Yakov, 13, went free as their father, Yair, 59, remained captive. Eitan Yahalomi, 12, was freed, leaving behind his father, Ohad, 49, who is presumed to be still held captive.

The Qatari foreign ministry said that other hostages released included six Argentinians, three French citizens and two Germans.

On Saturday night, Hamas released Hila Rotem, 13, along with her friend Emily Hand, 9, but not Rotem’s mother, Raya, 54, angering Israel. That handover was also delayed by Hamas’s accusations that Israel had not stuck to the terms of the agreement concerning the delivery of aid to northern Gaza.

Six Thai migrant workers were expected to be released over the Rafah crossing into Egypt while the Israelis were to cross directly into Israel, following a path set for the first time on Sunday night when the freed hostages including a critically ill Alma Avraham, 84, who was taken by helicopter straight to hospital to be put into intensive care.

There was crushing news for one of the best-known hostage families on Sunday night after they received a call telling them their loved ones were not listed for release. The Bibas family - Yarden Bibas, 34, his wife, Shiri, 32, and their children, Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 10 months - became widely recognised after Hamas broadcast footage of Shiri’s abduction, holding Ariel and Kfir, who have red hair.

According to the Israel ­Defence Forces, the Bibas family have been transferred to the custody of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Khan Yunis in the south of Gaza.

The IDF’s Arabic language spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Avichay Adraee, accused Hamas of treating women and children as “loot”.

“Children and babies under the age of one who have not seen the light of day for more than 50 days are being held captive by Hamas,” he said. “Hamas treats some of them like loot and in some places has transferred them to other terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip. Like, for example, the Bibas family, the babies with orange hair, who were kidnapped in Nir Oz by Hamas operatives and are being held in the Khan Yunis area by one of the Palestinian factions.”

In a statement, relatives of the Bibas family expressed their heartbreak. “We are experiencing moments of great uncertainty. The realisation that we will not get the hug we wished for leaves us speechless,” they said.

The family added that they were happy for “all the families who have been reunited with their loved ones. We will not stop the fight for the return of our loved ones to Israel”.

Hostages freed over the preceding three nights were spending time reunited with their families at Sheba Medical Centre and the Schneider Children’s Medical Centre of Israel, where returning women were also being debriefed by military intelligence over what they had seen. Israel is keen to glean what information it can on where the other hostages may be.

The aunt, uncle and grandparents of Avigail Idan, 4, the young US-Israeli girl whose freedom President Joe Biden lobbied for, were reunited with her on Sunday night following her release.

Her parents were murdered by Hamas on October 7, but her elder siblings survived.

THE TIMES