Hamas handed captive Israeli soldier Agam Berger over to the Red Cross in the Gaza Strip, the first of eight hostages set to be released today as part of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas is set to free two more Israeli hostages as well as five Thai captives, and Israel is to release another 110 Palestinian prisoners, in the third such exchange since fighting paused earlier this month.
Berger, 20, was abducted alongside four other female soldiers, who were freed on Saturday.
The tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is aimed at ending and securing the release of dozens of , as well as hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned or detained by Israel.
Under the ceasefire, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have to northern Gaza over the past three days. However, has been bittersweet as nearly everyone has friends or relatives who died, and many northern neighborhoods have been transformed into by more than 15 months of war.
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Here's the latest:
Israeli soldier Agam Berger released in Gaza Strip
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip 鈥 Hamas handed captive Israeli soldier Agam Berger over to the Red Cross at a ceremony in the heavily destroyed urban refugee camp of Jabaliya in northern Gaza.
Berger, 20, was abducted alongside four other female soldiers, who were freed on Saturday.
At a gathering in Tel Aviv, people cheered, clapped and whistled as they saw images of Berger being released on a TV screen, next to a large clock that鈥檚 counted the days the hostages have been in captivity.
Some held signs saying 鈥淎gam we鈥檙e waiting for you at home.鈥
A short time later, Israel confirmed that Berger was with its military.
Red Cross arrives at site of hostage release
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip 鈥 Red Cross vehicles arrived at the northern refugee camp of Jabaliya, where hundreds of masked militants and onlookers had gathered ahead of a planned release of hostages held in Gaza.
Hamas set up two locations for the release, one in Jabaliya and the other in the southern city of Khan Younis in front of the destroyed home of .
Video shows hostages set to be released
JERUSALEM 鈥 The Islamic Jihad militant group has released a brief video of two hostages set to be released Thursday as part of the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
The video, without sound, shows Arbel Yehoud, 29, and Gadi Moses, 80, smiling and embracing one another. They were among scores of people abducted in Hamas鈥 Oct. 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war.
Islamic Jihad is a smaller and more extreme militant group allied with Hamas. It took part in the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack.
Mother of Thai hostage hears he's about to be freed
BANGKOK 鈥 Khammee Lamnao, the mother of Thai hostage Surasak Lamnau, said the Thai embassy in Israel had called her Wednesday to let her know her son was one of the five who were to be released.
鈥淚 cannot wait to see my son,鈥 the 53-year-old said. 鈥淚鈥檝e been waiting for him.鈥
Surasak had been working in the agricultural sector in Israel for 15 months when he was taken hostage during the October 2023 attack.
are believed to have been taken hostage when Hamas attacked Israel in October, 2023. Of those, 23 have been released, and two of the remaining hostages have been confirmed dead.
Five surviving hostages are due to be released, and it is not clear at the moment what the status of the sixth person is.
There were about 30,000 Thai workers 鈥 mostly laborers in the agricultural sector 鈥 in Israel prior to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, when militants stormed through a border fence and killed hundreds of Israelis and foreign nationals, including 41 Thai workers.
At least 7,000 Thai workers are known to have returned home on government evacuation flights, but many others decided to stay for the opportunity to earn wages far higher than at home.
Who's set to be released today?
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip 鈥 The Israelis set to be released are Agam Berger, 20, a female soldier; Arbel Yehoud, a 29-year-old civilian woman; and Gadi Moses, an 80-year-old man. The names of the Thai hostages who were set to be freed were not released.
Yehoud was at the center of the dispute about the sequence of releases that briefly rocked the ceasefire over the weekend. Israel says she was supposed to have been freed Saturday and delayed the opening of crossings to northern Gaza when she was not. Berger was abducted alongside four other female soldiers, who were freed on Saturday.
Of the 110 people set to be released from prisons in Israel, 30 are serving life sentences after being convicted of deadly attacks against Israelis. Zakaria Zubeidi, who took part in a dramatic jailbreak in 2021 before being rearrested days later, is also among those set to be released.
Ceasefire holds for now but next phase will be harder
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip 鈥 Today's exchange is part of a deal that paused fighting in Gaza on Jan. 19. Israeli forces have pulled back from most of Gaza, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to return to what remains of their homes and humanitarian groups to surge assistance.
It calls for Hamas to release a total of 33 hostages, including women, children, older adults and sick or wounded men, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Israel says Hamas has confirmed that eight of the hostages to be released in this phase are dead.
The initial Phase One ceasefire paused fighting for six weeks, calling for the sides to use that time to negotiate a in which Hamas would release the remaining hostages and the ceasefire would continue indefinitely. The war could resume in early March if an agreement is not reached.
Negotiating a phase two deal could be difficult. Hamas says it won鈥檛 release the remaining hostages without an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, after within hours of the truce.
Meanwhile, Israel says it is still committed to destroying Hamas, and a key far-right partner in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu鈥檚 coalition is already calling for the war to resume after the ceasefire鈥檚 first phase.
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Corrects that 41, not 38, Thai workers were killed during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack and its aftermath.
