Hamas to release three Israelis and five Thai hostages on Thursday, as uneasy truce continues
29 January 2025, 23:59 | Updated: 30 January 2025, 00:39
Hamas are set to release eight more hostages taken on October 7, 2023 on Thursday, as the fragile ceasefire with Israel continues.
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The terror group will free Israeli women Arbel Yehoud, 29, and Agam Berger, 20, as well as 80-year-old Israeli man Gadi Moses.
Israel will continue to release Palestinian prisoners in return, on the eleventh day of the ceasefire after a war that has lasted over 15 months and has cost the lives of tens of thousands.
In the ceasefire's six-week first phase, a total of 33 hostages taken in the Hamas-led attack on October 7 2023, that ignited the war should be released, along with more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Hamas will also release five Thai nationals who have not been named. They were among several foreigners taken hostage on the day of the October 7 massacres.
Palestinians return to northern Gaza after more than a year of Israel blockade
The release of the Thais is unilateral and not considered part of the ceasefire.
If the hostage-prisoner exchange is completed on Thursday, it will be the third of its kind under the current ceasefire.
On January 18, Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag, all aged between 19 and 20, were released to the Red Cross in Gaza City during a heavily-choreographed handover involving dozens of Hamas gunmen.
British-Israeli woman Emily Damari, Doron Steinbrecher and Romi Gonen were the first three hostages released, on January 12.
The condition of the remaining hostages is unclear.
Israel is said to believe that 25 of the 33 hostages due to be released in the first phase of the ceasefire are alive.
Hamas provided Israel with an update on Sunday night on the overall number of captives who are still alive, but didn't specify which hostages had died, according to local media.
Under the ceasefire deal, more than 375,000 Palestinians have crossed into northern Gaza since Israel allowed their return, the United Nations said Tuesday. That represents more than a third of the million people who fled in the war's opening days.
Many of the Palestinians trudging along a seaside road or crossing in vehicles after security inspections were getting the first view of shattered northern Gaza under the fragile ceasefire, now in its second week.
They were determined, if their homes were damaged or destroyed, to pitch makeshift shelters or sleep outdoors amid the vast piles of broken concrete or perilously leaning buildings. After months of crowding in squalid tent camps or former schools in Gaza's south, they would finally be home.
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"It's still better for us to be on our land than to live on a land that's not yours," said Fayza al-Nahal as she prepared to leave the southern city of Khan Younis for the north.
Hani Al-Shanti, displaced from Gaza City, looked forward to feeling at peace in whatever he found, "even if it is a roof and walls without furniture, even if it is without a roof."
On Tuesday, one of the first hostages to be released under the current ceasefire - just the second in the war - shared a glimpse of life in captivity.
Naama Levy, 20, wrote on social media that she spent most of the first 50 days alone before being reunited with other soldiers kidnapped from her military base on October 7, as well as other civilian captives.
"They gave me strength and hope," she wrote. "We strengthened each other until the day of our release, and also afterwards."
A surge in humanitarian aid into Gaza continued under the ceasefire.
"In this past week alone, approximately 4,200 trucks carrying aid have entered the Gaza Strip following inspections," Israel's deputy foreign minister Sharren Haskel said.
Under the deal, 600 trucks of aid are meant to enter per day.
