Buses carrying released Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons arrive in West Bank’s Ramallah
Buses carrying released Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons arrived on Saturday in West Bank’s Ramallah, live television footage showed, according to Reuters.
An Agence France-Presse (AFP) reporter said they had earlier seen a bus carrying Palestinian prisoners leaving Ofer prison.
Key events
An Agence France-Press (AFP) correspondent reported that the bus had reached Beitunia near Ramallah where Palestinian prisoners disembarked and were greeted by cheering crowds of relatives.
Here are some of the latest images coming in today via the newswires:
Buses carrying released Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons arrive in West Bank’s Ramallah
Buses carrying released Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons arrived on Saturday in West Bank’s Ramallah, live television footage showed, according to Reuters.
An Agence France-Presse (AFP) reporter said they had earlier seen a bus carrying Palestinian prisoners leaving Ofer prison.
All three Israeli hostages back in Israel confirms military
Israel’s military has confirmed that all three freed Israeli hostages are now back in Israel.
Explainer: What is the Rafah crossing?
Peter Beaumont
The Rafah border crossing from Gaza into Egypt is the only one of the Gaza crossing points that does not communicate with Israel. While it was intended to be a significant crossing, since the Hamas takeover in 2007 it has only intermittently been open to Palestinians, most notably during the brief period when the Muslim Brotherhood governed Egypt until 2013.
Israel and Egypt’s joint blockade of Gaza under Hamas has made the crossing highly politically sensitive in Cairo – a situation that was exacerbated by an Islamist insurgency in the Sinai, which led to Egypt imposing controls on who was allowed to travel to towns and cities close to the Rafah crossing, not least the city of Arish.
Rafah, once a smuggling hub, is split between Egyptian Rafah and Palestinian Rafah, with the border running through it. Egypt’s deliberate flooding of the border area in 2015 was designed to close smuggling tunnels that connected the two, which at one time allowed people and goods to pass from Gaza to Egypt.
The Israeli military says the freed Israeli-American hostage, Keith Siegel, is in army custody.
Saturday’s handover saw none of the chaotic scenes that overshadowed an earlier transfer on Thursday, when Hamas guards struggled to shield hostages from a surging crowd in Gaza, reports Reuters.
But it was once again an occasion for a show of force by uniformed Hamas fighters who paraded in the area where the handovers took place in a sign of their re-established dominance in Gaza despite the heavy losses suffered in the war.
Israel is expected to transfer 182 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, Hamas said.
An Israeli campaign group said the release of three hostages by Hamas on Saturday “brings a ray of light” after more than 15 months of captivity in the Gaza Strip.
“Their release today brings a ray of light in the darkness, offering hope and demonstrating the triumph of the human spirit,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement after captives Yarden Bibas, Keith Siegel and Ofer Kalderon were freed, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Palestinian patients to cross over to Egypt via newly reopened Rafah crossing, says WHO
At the newly reopened Rafah crossing on the southern border, the first Palestinian patients to be allowed to leave Gaza, including children suffering from cancer and heart conditions, were expected to cross over to Egypt in a bus provided by the World Health Organization, reports Reuters.
Here are some of the latest images coming in via the newswires:
Macron shares ‘joy’ of Gaza hostage Ofer Kalderon’s release
French president Emmanuel Macron shared his joy on Saturday over the release of Franco-Israeli hostage Ofer Kalderon “after 483 days of unimaginable hell” as a captive held in Gaza, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Macron said on X he shared the “relief and joy” of Kalderon’s family and friends. The 54-year-old was abducted on 7 October 2023 from the Nir Oz kibbutz along with his son and daughter.
Hamas hands over Israeli hostage Siegel to Red Cross at Gaza port
Hamas handed over US-Israeli dual national Keith Siegel, the last of the three hostages released on Saturday by the group, to the Red Cross at Gaza port, live television footage showed.
Yarden Bibas and Ofer Kalderon, a French-Israeli dual national, were handed over by Hamas earlier on Saturday to a Red Cross official in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, in the latest stage of a phased exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
Red Cross vehicles have been seen on live TV arriving ahead of the expected handover of the third Israeli hostage, reports Reuters.
More details soon …
In Israel, north of Tel Aviv, the family of released hostage Ofer Kalderon hugged and cheered as they saw the images of him climbing on to the stage in Khan Younis and being transferred to the Red Cross.
“Ofer is coming home!” they said, arms lifted to the sky in Kfar Saba.
Associated Press also reports that Kalderon’s two children, Erez and Sahar, were abducted alongside him and released during a ceasefire in November 2023. Family members said they weren’t able to recover from their ordeal until their father returned.
“We are sorry it took so long, Ofer,” said Eyal Kalderon.
We will soon be a whole family again. We hope other families will soon feel like this, until the last family.
Our full report from Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem on this morning’s hostage releases is here with all the key developments.
More pictures have arrived of the Hamas handover of Israeli hostage Yarden Bibas to the Red Cross in southern Gaza in the fourth release of the current truce.
Two freed hostages back on Israeli soil – military
The Israeli military said the two freed hostages had now crossed into Israeli territory after they were released by Hamas on Saturday.
“A short while ago, the returning civilian hostages, Ofer Kalderon and Yarden Bibas, crossed the border into Israeli territory” accompanied by Israeli forces, AFP quoted the military as saying in a statement.
