Hamas frees 25 hostages from Gaza Strip

A group of Israeli and Thai hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip since October 7 have been released as part of a deal struck between Israel and the militants. Writes about this CNN.

Photo: IStock

The original group of 13 Israeli hostages have been released, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. Thai Prime Minister Settha Thaweesin said 12 Thai citizens had also been released.

On Friday, November 24, Israel is due to release 39 Palestinian prisoners.

On the subject: During the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, more than 100 UN employees were killed: this is a record in the history of the organization

The Israeli group was the first to be released under a deal between the two sides brokered by Qatar that was finalized after weeks of intense negotiations and took several days.

The agreement, accompanied by a four-day truce between Hamas and Israel, marked the first major diplomatic breakthrough in the conflict.

The freed hostages are expected to enter Egypt through the Rafah crossing and then return to Israeli territory, where they will likely be taken to local hospitals.

The simultaneous cessation of hostilities began at 07:00 local time on November 24. This is the first sustained break in fighting after nearly seven weeks of conflict.

Pressure on the Israeli government from hostage families demanding answers and action from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been building for weeks.

International organizations are calling for increased humanitarian assistance to the population of Gaza. The truce is expected to provide respite for residents of the enclave, who have endured weeks of shelling. According to Hamas authorities, the death toll since October 7 has reached 14.

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Israel declared war on Hamas after a bloody terrorist attack carried out by militants on October 7 in the country, which killed more than 1200 people. It was the largest attack on Israel since the country's founding in 1948.

According to the Israeli military, militants held more than 200 people in Gaza that day, captured as a result of mass kidnappings.

As ForumDaily wrote earlier:

• October 7 Hamas attacked Israel: Netanyahu declared that “this is war.”
• 8 October The Israeli government officially declared war and greenlighted "significant military steps" in response to the surprise attack by Hamas militants.
• October 11, first plane with American weapons arrived in southern Israel, and the US government invited American citizens wishing to leave Israel evacuation flights. On October 14 it became known: Egypt, Israel and the United States agreed that foreigners living in the Gaza Strip, will be able to travel through the Rafah border crossing into Egypt.
• October 16 President US Joe Biden said Israeli occupation Gaza Strip would be a big mistake.
• October 18 Hossein Amir-Abdallahian, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran, posted a tweet where he wrote that Israel’s time is “running out”. This happened after a rocket attack on a hospital in Gaza took place on October 17.
• 18 October US President Joe Biden visited Israelto express strong support for a country that has declared war on the Palestinian group Hamas due to its brutal terror.
• 19 October US President Joe Biden addressed the Americans from the Oval Office with a speech about the wars between Israel and Hamas, as well as Russia and Ukraine.
• October 24 Hamas released two hostages: about what one of them said.
• On October 24, at a meeting of the UN Security Council in New York, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the situation in the Middle East is becoming more dire by the hour and called on all parties to respect and protect civilians. Israel reacted angrily to comments by the UN Secretary General.
• Israeli troops and tanks conducted a raid in the Gaza Strip on the night of October 26. The military said it carried out several strikes on terrorist targets to “prepare the battlefield” ahead of a major ground operation.
• 27 October two Egyptian cities on the Red Sea were bombed – six people were injured. The aggressor has again demonstrated the danger of the conflict between Israel and Gaza spreading throughout the region. In the same day representatives of Iran and Hamas met in Moscow to talk about Israel.
• On November 1, hundreds of foreign passport holders and wounded people trapped in the Gaza Strip began to leave the war-torn territory. For them, for the first time since the Hamas attacks on Israel, Rafah, the border crossing with Egypt, opened.
• 13 November Israel Defense Forces (IDF) showed weapons and explosives in one of the rooms located under the Al-Rantisi Children's Hospital. The Israeli military said parts of the basement were a Hamas "command and control center" and may have been used to hold hostages.
• Fifty women and children who have been held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip since October 7 must be released in exchange for a four-day ceasefire. This agreement was concluded by Israel and Hamas with the mediation of Qatar and the support of the United States.

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