TEL AVIV – The militant group Hamas has released 25 Israeli and Thai hostages seized during the deadliest attack in Israel’s history, the first to be freed under a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that appeared to be taking hold.
Thirteen Israeli women and child hostages had been transferred to the Red Cross and were on their way to a border crossing with Egypt, according to Israeli media reports.
Thailand’s Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, meanwhile, announced on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, that 12 Thai hostages had also been released.
Thai embassy officials were on their way to pick up the hostages, and that their names and other details would be released afterward, he said.
The two hostage releases on Nov 24 were negotiated separately, with Qatar mediating between Israel and Hamas, and Iran aiding Thailand in its talks with Hamas.
Earlier reports said the Israeli hostages would be released to the Red Cross and an Egyptian security delegation that travelled to Gaza on Nov 23, then taken out through Egypt for transfer to Israel, Egyptian security sources said.
Israel will release 39 Palestinians prisoners – 24 women and 15 teenagers – in the occupied West Bank, in exchange for the 13 hostages freed from Gaza, a Palestinian official said.
The authorities in Tel Aviv are now gearing up for the complex task of helping those returning home from a nearly seven-week hostage ordeal that may have left them deeply traumatised.
Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct 7, killing about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, according to an Israeli count, and seizing about 240 hostages.
Israel has vowed to “crush” Hamas in response and unleashed a withering military campaign that Gaza’s Hamas government says has killed nearly 15,000 people in the coastal territory.
“We hope the picture will be beautiful at the end of the day,” Mr Ziv Agmon, legal adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told reporters, saying Israel would “follow the agreement” but could not speak for Hamas.
“With a terrorist organisation like Hamas, everything that happens in the coming days is a miracle,” he said.
Journalists saw Israeli tanks moving away from Gaza at the northern end as the truce took hold at 7am (1pm in Singapore) on Nov 24, and aid trucks rolling in from Egypt at the southern end.
There was no sound of Israeli air force activity above northern Gaza, nor any of the contrails typically left by Palestinian rocket fire.
Hamas confirmed on its Telegram channel that all hostilities from its forces would cease.
But the group’s spokesman Abu Ubaida for Hamas’ armed wing later referred to “this temporary truce” in a video message that called for an “escalation of the confrontation with (Israel) on all resistance fronts”, including the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where violence has surged since the Gaza war erupted almost seven weeks ago.
The Israeli military also said fighting would resume soon.
“This will be a short pause, at the conclusion of which the war (and) fighting will continue with great might and will generate pressure for the return of more hostages,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said.
Over the course of the four-day truce, at least 50 hostages are expected to be freed, with 150 Palestinians prisoners to be released in exchange.
Doctors would perform a “full physical examination” of every hostage, and they would be able to video-call family members in a conversation monitored by professionals.
‘Life has changed dramatically’
“This is very important… because we don’t know what they know. Many have family members who are not alive anymore. There are children with parents that were murdered, siblings who were also murdered,” said Mr Agmon, the adviser to Mr Netanyahu.
The released hostages would then be flown to five major hospitals and medical facilities around Israel, where they would be physically reunited with their loved ones.
Experts said it was crucial that they be slowly and gently reintroduced to reality.
“The biggest risk is to usher them into their previous life without doing it slowly and gently because it’s overwhelming and some of them will shut down completely,” Dr Rony Berger, a senior clinical psychologist and expert on coping with the trauma of a terror attack or major disaster.
The first thing was to protect them from “the carnival” of their homecoming, he said.
“They were probably isolated so bringing them into all this stimulation is very hard,” he said, explaining they would be taken to a “secluded place with very few family members”.
“Life has changed dramatically. It will take time for them to reconnect to their life before,” he said, adding that many would also learn that one or both parents had been killed, or other close relatives.
“Obviously you don’t tell a three-year-old in the same way (as an older child) but they may ask and you have to tell them something. And if he’s six years old, you have to tell him. So mourning will be part of that,” he said. AFP
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