The armed wing of the radical Islamic Hamas says it has handed over a second group of hostages to the Red Cross. The Al-Qassam Brigades announced this in a statement late on Saturday evening.
Qatari sources said the 13 Israeli and seven foreign hostages were heading towards the Egyptian border. An Egyptian government source also confirmed that the hostages were heading to the Rafah border crossing.
Confirmation from the Red Cross initially took some time. Just hours before the hostages were released, Hamas surprisingly halted a transfer at the last minute. The terrorist organization gave as its reason that in its view Israel had violated part of the hostage agreement. Israel then issued a midnight ultimatum.
After Qatar intervened, Hamas relented late in the evening. In return, 39 Palestinian prisoners would be released from Israeli prisons in the evening. According to Hamas, six of them are women and 33 are male youth under the age of 19.
To the background
According to Israeli sources, Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people in an attack in southern Israel on October 7. Israel then launched a large-scale military operation aimed at destroying Hamas. Israel attacked the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip from the air, sea and on the ground. According to Palestinian information, more than 14,000 residents of the densely populated, narrow coastal area have been killed so far, about 40 percent of them children. Hundreds of thousands fled their homes and apartments. Many people now took advantage of the ceasefire to search the rubble for valuables and other belongings.
Source: Krone
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