On Monday, the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement, released the second batch of 13 Israeli detainees in the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, and the International Red Cross began receiving them in preparation for handing them over to the Israeli army, thus completing the handover of all living detainees held by Hamas.
The Israeli army said that Red Cross vehicles are on their way to receive the second batch of Israeli detainees who will be released by Hamas as part of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, on Monday.
The army statement said that the handover process would take place at “another meeting point in the southern Gaza Strip, where a number of detainees will be handed over.”
The Israeli army announced, earlier today, that it had received from the Red Cross seven detainees alive who had been released by the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip.
An official participating in the operation told Reuters that the International Committee of the Red Cross convoy arrived at the first point to receive detainees in Gaza.
The official confirmed that the first group of 7 Israeli detainees, from the Al-Qassam Brigades, had been handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza.
Sources from Hamas and the Detainees’ Families Forum reported that Israeli detainees who have not yet been released made video calls from Gaza with their families. The Al-Qassam Brigades announced, early Monday morning, that it would release 20 hostages today, 7 of whom the Red Cross has received so far.
Israeli media published clips of video calls of detainees. Elkana Bouhbut, Bar Avraham Kuperstein, Yosef Haim Ohana, and Omri Miran.
Several sources within the Hamas movement confirmed to Agence France-Presse that these calls had already taken place, without providing further details.
The official indicated to Reuters that 1,716 Palestinians are expected to be released from Gaza at the Nasser Medical Complex in the Strip on Monday.
He explained that 250 Palestinians who were serving life sentences in Israeli prisons are expected to be released to the West Bank and Jerusalem, and abroad today.
For its part, the Israeli army announced that its forces would receive 7 released detainees from the Gaza Strip from members of the Red Cross.
Israeli media reported earlier today, Monday, that the process of releasing Israeli detainees held in Gaza is expected to begin at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) from the Netzarim axis and continue at 10 a.m. in Khan Yunis in Gaza.
Today, Monday, Hamas is scheduled to release twenty Israeli detainees that it has been holding in Gaza for two years, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees and prisoners under the terms of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Twenty of the forty-eight detainees still in Gaza are believed to be alive. Here are some details about them:
Nova concert hosts
Most of the living detainees to be released were kidnapped from the site of the Nova concert near the Za’im residential community in southern Israel. Among them are Eviatar David (24 years old), who was last seen in a video clip published by Hamas last August, looking extremely emaciated, digging what he said in the clip was his own grave, and pianist Alon Ohel (24 years old) and Avenatan Or (32 years old).
A video clip circulated around the world showing Orr being kidnapped with his girlfriend, Noa Arjamani, desperately pleading not to be killed, while Orr was led alongside her on foot. Arjamani was rescued in June.
Detainees kidnapped from residential communities
Seven of the detainees were kidnapped from their homes in settlements, which are small residential areas near the Gaza border. Among them were twins Galli and Zev Berman (28 years old) and brothers Ariel Cuneo (28 years old) and David Cuneo (35 years old), who were kidnapped along with his wife, Sharon, and their young daughters. Sharon and the girls were released in a short truce in November 2023.
Israeli soldiers
Two of the detainees are Matan Angrist (22 years old) and Nimrod Cohen (20 years old), two Israeli soldiers who were captured by Hamas militants in the battles on October 7.
Aliens
There are four foreigners among the forty-eight detainees. Three of them, a Tanzanian student and two Thai workers, were declared dead. The fate of Nepalese student Bipin Joshi is still unknown.
Deceased people
The Israeli authorities officially announced the death of twenty-six hostages based on forensic medicine and intelligence information. The fate of two, including Joshi, remains unknown. Hamas indicated that recovering the bodies of some of the dead detainees may take a long time, given that some burial places are unknown. A special international task force is supposed to help determine the burial places of all of them.
One of these deceased was an Israeli soldier who was killed in the war between Israel and Hamas in 2014, and the rest were all among the 251 hostages taken by Hamas in the October 7, 2023 attack that led to the outbreak of war in Gaza. Some were already dead when they were kidnapped, while others were killed by their kidnappers, or killed in Israeli raids on Gaza.
In addition, the Israeli army said that the Red Cross is on its way to a meeting point in the northern Gaza Strip, where a number of detainees will be transferred to their custody, confirming its readiness to receive additional detainees who are expected to be transferred to the Red Cross at a later time.
Israeli Army Radio reported that the first 6 detainees would be released in Gaza City
