Hamas frees 3 hostages and Israel releases Palestinian prisoners amid cease-fire
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KHAN YUNIS, Gaza Strip — Hamas militants on Saturday freed three men, including an American Israeli, held hostage for more than a year in the Gaza Strip, and Israel released 183 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails in the fourth such exchange of a cease-fire deal that has halted 15 months of war.
Keith Siegel, 65, looking pale and thin, was released to the Red Cross on Saturday morning in Gaza City.
Siegel, originally from Chapel Hill, N.C., was taken hostage from Kibbutz Kfar Aza along with his wife, Aviva Siegel, during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. She was released during a brief cease-fire the following month and has since waged a high-profile campaign to free her husband and other hostages.
Militants handed Israeli Yarden Bibas, 35, and French Israeli Ofer Kalderon, 54, to Red Cross officials in the southern city of Khan Yunis.
The releases brings to 18 the number of hostages released since the cease-fire began Jan. 19.
The releases were quick and orderly, in contrast to chaotic scenes that unfolded Thursday when armed militants appeared to struggle to hold back a crowd during another hostage release. In both of Saturday’s releases, masked and armed militants stood in lines as the hostages walked onto a stage and waved before being led off and handed over to the Red Cross.
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In Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, thousands of people gathered to watch the releases transmitted live on a large screen, waving signs and cheering.
A total of 33 Israeli hostages are expected to be freed in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners during the truce’s initial six weeks. Israel says it has received information from Hamas that eight of those hostages were either killed in the Oct. 7 attack or have died in captivity.
Shortly after Siegel arrived in Israel, a bus departed Ofer Military Prison with some 32 prisoners bound for the West Bank. Crowds of well-wishers greeted the bus, cheering and hoisting the released prisoners on their shoulders in scenes of jubilation.
The Israeli Prison Authority said all 183 Palestinian prisoners scheduled for release Saturday had been freed. Most, including 111 arrested after Hamas’ 2023 cross-border attack, were released to Gaza. Just over two dozen returned to cheering crowds in the occupied West Bank. Seven others serving life sentences were transferred to Egypt ahead of their deportation.
Powerful forces in Middle East and, now, in Washington working against truce lasting beyond its first phase.
Cease-fire brings respite to battered Gaza
The truce is aimed at winding down the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and the Hamas militant group. The fragile deal has halted the fighting and allowed for increased aid to flow into the Gaza Strip.
On Saturday, a group of 50 sick and wounded Palestinian children left Gaza for treatment through the Rafah border crossing to Egypt, in the first opening of the enclave’s sole exit since Israel captured it nine months ago.
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The reopening of Rafah marked another key step in the first phase of the cease-fire.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he spoke Saturday evening with President Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, and they agreed that negotiations on the cease-fire’s second phase will begin at their meeting Monday in Washington. That phase calls for releasing the remaining hostages and extending the truce indefinitely.
Israel says it is still committed to destroying Hamas, and a key far-right partner in Netanyahu’s coalition is calling for the war to resume after the first phase. Hamas says it won’t release the remaining hostages without an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Netanyahu leaves Sunday for Washington, where he will meet with Trump on Tuesday.
Families and neighbors celebrate return of hostages
In Israel, the release of Bibas has brought renewed attention to — and concern for — the fate of his wife, Shiri, and their sons. All four were captured from Kibbutz Nir Oz. A video of their abduction by armed men showed Shiri swaddling in a blanket her two redheaded boys — Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 9 months old at the time.
Kfir was the youngest of about 250 people taken captive Oct. 7, and his plight came to represent the helplessness and anger over the hostage crisis in Israel, where the Bibas family has become a household name.
Hamas has said Shiri and her sons were killed in an Israeli airstrike. Israel has not confirmed that, but a military spokesman recently acknowledged serious concern about their fates. Yarden Bibas is believed to have been held separately from his family. Photos taken during his abduction appeared to show him wounded.
“Yarden has returned home, but the home remains incomplete,” the Bibas family wrote in a statement. “Yarden is a father who left his safe room to protect his family, bravely survived captivity, and returned to an unbearable reality.”
The family said it “continues with hope” and made a plea to the public to keep pressing for the release of all remaining hostages.
Kalderon was also captured from Kibbutz Nir Oz. In Kfar Saba, north of Tel Aviv, Kalderon’s family hugged and cheered as they saw the images of him climbing onto the stage in Khan Yunis and being transferred to the Red Cross. “Ofer is coming home!” they said, arms lifted to the sky.
Kalderon’s two children, Erez and Sahar, were abducted alongside him and released during the cease-fire in November 2023. Family members said they weren’t able to recover from their ordeal until their father returned.
French President Emmanuel Macron said that his nation “shares in the relief and joy” of Kalderon’s return after 483 days of “unimaginable hell,” adding that France would continue doing all it can to secure the release of another French Israeli hostage being held in Gaza.
More than 100 hostages were released during the weeklong cease-fire in November 2023. About 80 more hostages are still in Gaza, at least a third of them believed dead. Israel says Hamas has confirmed that eight of the 33 to be released in the first phase of the cease-fire are dead.
Some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the Oct. 7 attack. More than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory air and ground war, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were militants.
The Israeli military says it killed more than 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because its fighters operate in residential neighborhoods.
Jahjouh writes for the Associated Press.
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