President Joe Biden expressed hope that the temporary truce between Israel and Hamas, a designated terrorist organization, will continue for a long time, as the radical group freed 17 more people, including a 4-year-old American girl. Hamas has said it wants to extend the pause in fighting, which will enter its fourth and final agreed day on Monday. Previously, Israel offered to accept an additional day of truce for every 10 additional hostages released and to triple the number of Palestinian prisoners released each time.
On Sunday, Israel freed 39 Palestinian teenagers, bringing to 117 the total number freed since the truce began. Hamas said it had transferred 13 Israelis, three Thais and one Russian citizen to Jerusalem, and the International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed it had successfully transferred them from Gaza on Sunday.
Biden said 4-year-old hostage Abigail Edan witnessed the murder of her parents by Hamas militants during their Oct. 7 attack on Israel and had been held hostage since. “What she went through is unimaginable,” Biden said at a news conference Sunday.
Abigail is undergoing medical tests, Israel’s Channel 13 reported. Her grandfather, Carmel Edan, told Reuters: “I can’t believe she’s back, I thank Biden for all the help she gave us.”
Israel said on Monday it had received what could be the final list of hostages slated for release. The list is being reviewed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. The statement said more information would be provided when possible.
Netanyahu said on Sunday that he had spoken with Biden about releasing the hostages and added that he would welcome an extension of the temporary truce if more hostages could be freed. However, Netanyahu stated that after the end of the truce, “we will return in full force to achieve our objectives: destroy Hamas, ensure that Gaza does not return to what it was; and of course, the release of all our hostages.”
The four-day truce, agreed to last week, is the first cessation of fighting in seven weeks since the Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and took around 240 hostages in Gaza.
In response to this attack, Israel began bombing the enclave and launched a ground operation in northern Gaza. According to Gaza authorities, some 14,800 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced.
Palestinians joyfully welcomed the released prisoners in Ramallah, reports the Palestinian news agency WAFA.
Omar Abdullah Al-Haj, 17, one of the prisoners freed on Sunday, told Reuters he was unaware of what was happening in the outside world.
“I can’t believe that I am now free, but my joy is incomplete because we still have brothers who remain in prison, and then there is all the news about Gaza that I now have to hear about,” Al-Haj said. whom the Israeli Ministry of Justice accused of belonging to the radical group Islamic Jihad.
The three most recently freed Thai hostages are in good shape, Thailand’s Prime Minister said. The Foreign Ministry added that efforts were continuing to free the remaining 15 Thais.
The release of the hostages on Sunday followed the release of 13 Israelis and four foreigners on Saturday. On Friday, Hamas released 24 hostages on the first day of the truce. A Palestinian source said up to 100 hostages could eventually be freed.
Qatar, Egypt and the United States are pushing to extend the truce, but it is unclear whether this will happen.
Clashes and recriminations threaten to derail the existing agreement.
The murder of a Palestinian farmer in the central Gaza Strip heightened these fears. The farmer was shot dead by Israeli forces, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.
Violence also erupted in the West Bank, where Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians, including two minors and at least one armed militant, on Saturday night and early Sunday, doctors and local sources said.
The deal was in jeopardy when Hamas’s armed wing said on Saturday it was delaying the release of the hostages until Israel met all terms of the truce, including a commitment to send aid trucks to northern Gaza.
Qatari diplomats are now in Gaza to monitor the entry and delivery of their country’s aid, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said.
A U.N. official traveling on the aid convoy to northern Gaza said Sunday that aid groups were on track to deliver their largest shipment in more than a month, and described thin, emaciated residents quenching their thirst. as soon as the water arrived.
“People are so desperate that you can see it in the eyes of the adults that they haven’t eaten,” James Elder of the United Nations Children’s Fund told Reuters via video link.
