16 hostages that Hamas had earlier liberated in Gaza were exchanged for the release of another batch of Palestinian captives by Israel.
Before daybreak on Thursday, a bus transporting a few of the Palestinian prisoners was spotted pulling into the West Bank city of Ramallah. The releases took place on the sixth day of a brief ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
A total of 210 released prisoners have been exchanged for 97 hostages, with hostages being exchanged for Palestinian detainees on each day of the truce.
Ahed Tamimi, a 22-year-old activist who rose to international prominence in 2017 when a video of her slapping an Israeli soldier went viral on social media, was the most well-known of those released.
She was detained by Israeli troops on November 6 at her residence in the West Bank for allegedly “inciting to terrorism” on her Instagram account. Ms. Tamimi’s mother claims that her daughter’s account had been hacked.
As international mediators scrambled to negotiate another extension to allow future exchanges and prolong the stop of Israel’s air and ground offensive, there was a most recent swap for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel under the Gaza truce.
Late on Wednesday, 16 hostages were freed by Hamas. Ten Israeli women and children and four Thai nationals have reportedly been returned to Israel, according to the Israeli military, where they are being transferred to hospitals to be reunited with their families.
Hamas had already released two Russian-Israeli women in a separate release. To finalize the terms of an additional truce extension past its early Thursday deadline, negotiators were pushing hard.
As the majority of the women and children detained by Hamas are released, the negotiations seem to be becoming more difficult, and the militants are anticipated to want larger releases in exchange for the soldiers and men being liberated.
After almost eight weeks of Israeli bombardment and a ground campaign in Gaza that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Palestinians, the uprooting of three-quarters of the 2.3 million-person population, and a humanitarian crisis, there has been increasing international pressure for the truce to last as long as possible.
Israel says it will uphold the ceasefire provided Hamas continues to release its hostages, and it has hailed the recent release of several dozen detainees.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, emphasized on Wednesday that his country will continue its efforts to destroy Hamas, which has controlled Gaza for 16 years and planned the murderous attack on Israel that started the conflict.
“After this phase of returning our abductees is exhausted, will Israel return to fighting? So my answer is an unequivocal yes,” he said. “There is no way we are not going back to fighting until the end.”
He made his remarks before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s planned visit to the area to advocate for more truce extensions and hostage releases.
