They are free. For the first time since October 7, Hamas on Friday freed 13 Israeli hostages from its captivity. Evacuated via the Egyptian border, they were taken care of by the Israeli army and are then expected to be transferred to hospitals in Israel.
The hostages were initially handed over to the Red Cross, before being taken into the care of the Israeli security services and the IDF, as was the case on 20 and 23 October, when two people were released by Hamas each time. 10 Thais and 1 Filipino were also released by the Islamist movement, according to figures from the Red Cross and Qatar, bringing the total number of hostages freed to 24. The release of the other 11 hostages would not be part of the agreement between Israel and Hamas.
Operation Gates of Heaven
The operations, dubbed "Gates of Heaven," took place at the Rafah crossing on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. In exchange for their release, Israel announced the release of 39 Palestinian prisoners, 24 women and 15 teenagers.
Once in the hands of the Israeli authorities, the hostages are expected to be repatriated by the army by plane via El-Arish airport in Egypt, after passing through the Kerem Shalom border crossing.
They must then be transported to two hospitals on the outskirts of Tel Aviv: Wolfson and Schneider. Only the most serious cases will be referred to the Soroka Medical Center, located in Beersheba, in the south of the country. These establishments are among the six selected for their trauma services, paediatrics and for the care of victims of sexual abuse and intended to receive hostages in the near future.
Interrogations by intelligence services postponed
They should be treated out of sight, in spaces where only their families and medical staff will be allowed to join them, in order to protect them from the media, which is kept away.
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Israeli intelligence services should only interrogate the freed hostages at a later stage, "when they feel sufficiently prepared," according to Éric Denécé, director of the French Center for Research on Intelligence (CF2R), who said such interrogations were usually done "immediately" for questions of memory.
The first hostage release comes as part of an agreement brokered between Hamas and the Israeli government under the aegis of Qatar. It provides for Hamas to release 50 hostages (minors and women) at a rate of a dozen people per day, for four days. In exchange, Israel must release three Palestinian prisoners for every hostage recovered, or about 150 people. Again, the agreement stipulates that these will be women and adolescents.