Palestinian militants released three Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian inmates freed by Israel, completing the latest swap despite fears the Gaza truce deal was near collapse.
An AFP journalist saw masked Hamas gunmen parade the hostages onto a stage in front of a crowd in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Yunis, where they were made to make statements into a microphone before being handed over to the Red Cross and taken back to Israeli territory.
Clutching gift bags given by their captors and certificates to mark the end of their captivity, the three men, flanked by fighters, called for the completion of further hostage exchanges under the ceasefire deal.
More buses took inmates from an Israeli prison in the Negev desert to the Gaza Strip, according to another AFP journalist.
Saturday’s swap, the sixth since the truce took effect on January 19, came after Hamas had threatened to pause hostage releases over alleged Israeli violations, while Israel had threatened to resume the war if it did.
The three hostages — Israeli-American Sagui Dekel-Chen, Israeli-Russian Sasha Trupanov and Israeli-Argentine Yair Horn — had been held by Gaza militants since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war 16 months ago.
Friends and family members of the hostages shed tears of joy at the sight of their loved ones on Saturday.
“Finally, Sasha can be surrounded by his loved ones and begin a new path,” Trupanov’s family said in a statement.
Dekel-Chen’s wife, Avital, said in a call to her sister aired by Israel’s Kan public broadcaster: “My breath has returned. He looks so handsome.”
Later in the day, hundreds of Palestinians freed by Israel reached Khan Yunis, where they threw up victory signs and waved to a jubilant crowd, an AFP reporter said.
