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Saturday, February 22, 2025

Desperate families await return of 4 female soldiers held by Hamas for 15 months

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28 days ago
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Relatives and supporters of hostages held by the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip mark the start of Shabbat in Tel Aviv, Israel, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Relatives and supporters of hostages held by the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip mark the start of Shabbat in Tel Aviv, Israel, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Maya Alleruzzo

Hamas an­nounced Fri­day that it would re­lease four fe­male sol­diers held hostage for 15 months in Gaza, as part of an ex­change for dozens of Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers laid out in its cease­fire agree­ment with Is­rael. An ad­vo­ca­cy group rep­re­sent­ing the fam­i­lies of hostages con­firmed the iden­ti­ties of the cap­tive Is­raelis to be re­leased on Sat­ur­day.

Un­der the deal that paused the 15-month war, Is­rael would re­lease 200 Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers or de­tainees in ex­change for the four Is­raeli women, in­clud­ing 120 mil­i­tants serv­ing life sen­tences af­ter be­ing con­vict­ed of dead­ly at­tacks.

The four Is­raeli sol­diers, Ka­ri­na Ariev, 20; Daniel­la Gilboa, 20; Naa­ma Levy, 20; and Liri Al­bag, 19, were cap­tured in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 at­tack that ig­nit­ed the war and have had no con­tact with the out­side world since then.

In a state­ment, The Hostages and Miss­ing Fam­i­lies Fo­rum wel­comed their ex­pect­ed re­lease.

“An en­tire na­tion has fought for them and anx­ious­ly awaits their longed-for re­turn to their fam­i­lies’ em­brace,” it said.

The of­fice of Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu said it had re­ceived the list of names of hostages slat­ed for re­lease, with­out re­veal­ing their iden­ti­ties.

Rel­a­tives of hostages still be­ing held in Gaza had ear­li­er Fri­day called on Ne­tanyahu to en­sure that all re­main­ing cap­tives are freed, and ap­pealed to U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump to con­tin­ue press­ing for their re­lease.

 

Who are the Is­raeli hostages be­ing re­leased?

 

The four fe­male sol­diers on Hamas’ list were tak­en from Na­hal Oz base near the bor­der with Gaza when Pales­tin­ian mil­i­tants over­ran it on Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 60 sol­diers there.

The fe­male ab­ductees had all served in a unit of look­outs charged with mon­i­tor­ing threats along the bor­der. A fifth fe­male sol­dier in their unit, Agam Berg­er, 20, was ab­duct­ed with them but not in­clud­ed in list.

On Oct. 7, Ariev, one of the sol­diers be­ing re­leased, texted her fam­i­ly good­bye as she was be­ing dragged in­to Gaza: “If I don’t live, take care of Mom and Dad all their lives. Don’t give up. Live.”

Her fam­i­ly said she loves to cook, sing, dance and write po­et­ry. A year ago, Hamas re­leased a video clip show­ing her and Gilboa, an­oth­er sol­dier in her unit, plead­ing for their re­lease.

Daniel­la Gilboa’s name was orig­i­nal­ly Danielle, but af­ter her ab­duc­tion her par­ents changed it to Daniel­la, cit­ing the Jew­ish be­lief that chang­ing a name can change some­one’s for­tune. In videos of her kid­nap­ping, Gilboa ap­pears to be suf­fer­ing from a foot in­jury as mil­i­tants hus­tle her in­to a jeep bound for Gaza. Gilboa has said she dreams of be­com­ing a pro­fes­sion­al singer.

Oth­er footage from Oct. 7 shared all over the world shows Levy, a sol­dier and triath­lete, wear­ing blood-stained gray sweat­pants as she is ab­duct­ed from her base. When she was younger, she par­tic­i­pat­ed in the U.S.-based “Hands of Peace” del­e­ga­tion, which brings to­geth­er Amer­i­cans, Is­raelis and Pales­tini­ans to work on co­ex­is­tence.

Ear­li­er this month, as cease­fire ne­go­ti­a­tions dragged on, Hamas’ mil­i­tary wing re­leased a video that showed Al­bag, the youngest of the sol­diers slat­ed for re­lease, in what her fam­i­ly said was “se­vere psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­tress.”

 

What hap­pens next?

 

As a frag­ile six-week cease­fire be­tween Is­rael and Hamas en­tered its sixth day, there were more than 90 hostages still be­ing held in Gaza. Is­rael be­lieves about a third, or pos­si­bly as many as half, of the more than 90 hostages still in Gaza have died.

Hamas has not re­leased de­fin­i­tive in­for­ma­tion on how many cap­tives are alive or the names of those who have died.

Mil­i­tants who burst across the bor­der in­to Is­rael on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 peo­ple in an at­tack that sparked the war in Gaza, took around 250 men, women and chil­dren hostage. About 100 were re­leased dur­ing a brief cease­fire in No­vem­ber that year. The bod­ies of around three dozen hostages have been re­cov­ered in Gaza. Eight hostages have been res­cued by the army.

In the first phase of the cease­fire deal, 33 hostages — in­clud­ing women, chil­dren, sick peo­ple and those over 50 — are ex­pect­ed to be re­leased grad­u­al­ly in re­turn for hun­dreds of Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers held by Is­rael. Most of the 33 are civil­ians, but the deal al­so com­mits Hamas to free­ing all liv­ing fe­male sol­diers in Phase 1, which is ex­pect­ed to last 42 days.

Hamas will re­lease liv­ing hostages first, but could re­lease some bod­ies if they don’t have enough liv­ing hostages in this cat­e­go­ry.

The first three Is­raeli hostages were freed in ex­change for 90 Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers on Sun­day, the first day of the cease­fire that has halt­ed the longest and dead­liest war in a cen­tu­ry of Is­raeli-Pales­tin­ian con­flict. The poignant scenes of hostages re­unit­ing with their fam­i­lies last week brought joy and re­lief but al­so wor­ry about the oth­er hostages still trapped in Gaza.

“This week we were moved to watch im­ages of moth­ers em­brac­ing their daugh­ters, but our hearts break think­ing that my son Nim­rod and oth­er men re­main be­hind, and each day they’re there pos­es a re­al dan­ger to their lives,” said Vicky Co­hen, whose son Nim­rod Co­hen is among the hostages still held.

An­oth­er par­ent, Ayelet Sam­er­a­no, whose son Yonatan Sam­er­a­no is among those still be­ing held, ap­pealed to Trump for his help in re­leas­ing the rest of the Is­raelis cap­tive in Gaza. Trump had warned that there would be “all hell to pay” if Is­raeli hostages were not re­leased by his in­au­gu­ra­tion.

Is­rael is ex­pect­ed to re­lease a list of which Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers will be freed. The Is­raeli Prison Ser­vice said late Fri­day it was prepar­ing “for the process of re­leas­ing im­pris­oned ter­ror­ists in ac­cor­dance with the agree­ment.” It said the Red Cross would fer­ry Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers by bus from Ofer Prison near the West Bank city of Ra­mal­lah to dif­fer­ent lo­ca­tions for their re­lease.

 

Where does the agree­ment stand in Gaza?

 

By the week­end, the truce ob­lig­ates Is­raeli forces to par­tial­ly with­draw from a key route in cen­tral Gaza, in or­der to let hun­dreds of thou­sands of dis­placed Pales­tini­ans to re­turn to the rem­nants of their homes in the bat­tered north.

Pales­tin­ian civil­ians in the south should be al­lowed to take a coastal road to north­ern Gaza from Sat­ur­day.

Those in oth­er parts of Gaza seized on the cease­fire this week to re­unite with scat­tered fam­i­ly mem­bers, pick­ing their way through vast swaths of rub­ble and try­ing to sal­vage what re­mained of their homes and their be­long­ings. But those dis­placed from the north have had to wait.

“The first thing I’ll do, I’ll kiss the dirt of the land on which I was born and raised,” said Na­dia Al-Debs, one of the many peo­ple gath­ered in makeshift tents in Gaza’s cen­tral city of Deir al-Bal­ah prepar­ing to set out north for Gaza City the next day. “We’ll re­turn so my chil­dren can see their fa­ther.”

Wide swaths of Gaza have been de­stroyed, while more than 47,000 Pales­tini­ans have been killed, ac­cord­ing to Gaza’s health au­thor­i­ties, who do not dif­fer­en­ti­ate be­tween com­bat­ants and civil­ians but say more than half are women and chil­dren. —TEL AVIV, Is­rael (AP)

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Sto­ry by SHLO­MO MOR and WAAFA SHU­RAFA | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Waafa Shu­rafa re­port­ed from Deir al-Bal­ah, Gaza Strip.


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