Similar to the recent days of the truce, the hostages were picked up by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and taken to Israel.
Majed Al-Ansari, a spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry, said in a statement that under the terms of the Qatar-brokered deal, 30 Palestinians – including 16 children and 14 women – were released on Wednesday from Israel.
Mr. Ansari said two Russians and four Thais were released outside of the agreement. The 10 Israelis released included five dual nationals. The dual nationals included a child with dual Dutch nationality, three dual German nationals and one dual American national.
The freed hostages were among 240 taken hostage by Hamas militants in an October 7 offensive in Israel. Israeli bombardment of Gaza in response to the offensive has killed 15,000 Gazans, according to health officials there.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office earlier identified the two Russian-Israelis freed on Wednesday as Yelena Trupanov, 50, and Irena Tati, 73. Images from Hamas' armed wing showed the women being handed over to the ICRC and taken out of the Gaza Strip.
Negotiations to extend truce
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Tel Aviv for the third time since the October 7 attack, and is expected to meet with Israeli leaders to discuss extending the truce and boosting humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Two Palestinian officials told Reuters that there were talks underway about extending the truce before it expires on Thursday, but no significant progress had been made.
Israel's Channel 12 reported that Netanyahu will hold a security meeting on Wednesday evening local time.
Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official in Lebanon, was quoted by Hamas-backed media outlets as saying efforts to extend the truce “are not worth talking about yet, and the proposals we have received are not worth considering.”
An Israeli official had previously said the truce could not be extended without a commitment to release all women and children held hostage. The official said the Israeli government believed the militias still held enough women and children to extend the truce by two to three days.
Photo: REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko.
A Palestinian official said negotiators were discussing the possibility that the Israeli men could be freed on terms different from the prisoner swap that calls for three Palestinian prisoners for every Israeli woman or child.
“Qatar continues to hope that the progress made in recent days can be sustained, and that the parties can reach an agreement to extend the humanitarian truce,” Ansari said in a statement.
Clashes in the West Bank
Meanwhile, in a clash in the West Bank city of Jenin between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians, two men and two gunmen were killed, according to Palestinian media agency WAFA.
According to the report, an 8-year-old boy, a 15-year-old man and two senior militia commanders were killed in the clashes. The Israeli military confirmed that these people threw explosives at Israeli soldiers, before the soldiers returned fire.
The hostage exchange was overshadowed by an unverified claim from Hamas that a family of Israeli hostages including the youngest, Kfir Bibas, had been killed in an Israeli bomb attack.
Israeli officials have said they are examining Hamas reports about the Bibas family, a high-profile issue in Israel because the families of the hostages – including 10-month-old Kfir, his 4-year-old brother Ariel and mother Shiri – are among the most concerned.
The Bibas family said they had been informed of the Hamas report. A statement from the Forum for Families of Hostage and Missing Persons said: “We are waiting for new information to be confirmed and hope that this report will be refuted by the officials.”
Gaza militants have so far freed more than 70 Israeli women and children under the initial ceasefire. Other foreigners, mostly Thai workers, have also been freed in a separate deal. Thai Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara wept as he met the Thais who were freed in Israel after seven weeks of captivity, and he said he expected the remaining 13 Thai hostages to be released soon.
Israel has freed 180 prisoners, including women and young men.
The four-day truce was extended for another 48 hours on Tuesday, and the Israeli government said it was willing to extend it as long as Hamas agreed to release at least 10 hostages a day. However, the dwindling number of women and children holding hostages means Hamas may agree to terms that would free Israeli men for the first time.
The truce has brought the first period of stability to Gaza in the war, after the territory of 2.3 million people was almost razed.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday that the Gaza Strip was witnessing a “historic humanitarian disaster” and urged the world not to turn away from the scene.
Nguyen Quang Minh (according to Reuters)
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