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Three Israeli hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza were released from captivity on Saturday, in exchange for 183 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Yarden Bibas, 34, Ofer Kalderon, 53, and Keith Siegel, 65, were handed over to the Red Cross – the latest hostages to be released as part of a ceasefire deal struck last month.
Palestinian prisoners were taken in buses to Gaza and the West Bank, many of them coming from the nearby Ofer prison. The tone of the exchange sat in stark contrast to Thursday’s chaotic handover, during which surging crowds pressed in on hostages, eliciting concern for their safety and prompting Israel to delay that day’s release of Palestinian prisoners.
Saturday’s release was more orderly, but retained the presentational elements that sought to project that Hamas remains the governing force in Gaza. Lines of armed fighters kept crowds at bay, while the men who were released were flanked by more armed and masked fighters. A banner behind them bore the images of killed Hamas leaders.
Officials from the Red Cross signed certificates of release for Mr Kalderon and Mr Bibas, who were then made to hold them as they waved to the crowd in Khan Younis. As Mr Siegel, a US-Israeli dual national, appeared on stage in Gaza City, a crowd gathered in Hostages Square in Tel Aviv erupted into cheers, some chanting: “He’s a hero, he’s a hero.” One woman described feeling “pure happiness”.
The family of French-Israeli Mr Kalderon said in a statement that they were “overwhelmed with joy, relief, and emotion after 484 long and difficult days of unbearable waiting”. They added that he “endured months in a nightmare”, holding onto the “hope of embracing his children again”.
But others, like Liz Domsky, had mixed feelings. “They all need to come home,” she said while watching the proceedings from Hostages Square. “I have a student there, Bar Kupershtein. I was a teacher in the high school where he studied. We are very worried about him. We hope he’ll come back. He’s not in the first list.”
There was a similar complexity of emotion in Israel over the release of Mr Bibas, whose wife, Shiri, and two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, were also kidnapped during the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas. Hamas claimed that they had been killed by an Israeli air strike early on in the ensuing war – but they were named in a list of hostages it said in January it was willing to free. Holding up an image of Kfir, who was just nine months old when he was taken, Andrea Wittenberg remarked: “They are children. They should be at home. It is impossible for them to be in Gaza.”
According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, nearly 47,500 people have been killed in the territory since Israel invaded in the wake of the 7 October 2023 attack, in which around 1,200 Israelis were killed and 251 taken hostage. A ceasefire and hostage release agreement between Israel and Hamas began on 19 January, with the first stage to see 33 hostages and 1,900 prisoners released, as well as hundreds of lorries carrying humanitarian aid being allowed into Gaza each day.
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