Two Hamas sources told AFP that some of the hostages seized in the October 7 raids on Israel were on Friday handed over to the Red Cross for return to Israel, via Egypt.
“Half an hour ago, the prisoners were handed to the Red Cross who will take them to the Egyptians” at the Rafah crossing, one of the sources said.
“They were handed over to the Egyptian side,” the source added.
A source in the military wing of Hamas confirmed the handover, adding: “This is the first group under the agreement.”
The first tranche of 13 women and children hostages were expected to go back to Israel on Friday after a ceasefire between Israeli and Hamas went into effect in the Gaza Strip in the morning.
Israel is set to release three times as many Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails — women and teenage boys — under the terms of the deal reached with Gaza’s Hamas rulers.
Hamas broke through Gaza’s militarised border with Israel on October 7 to kill, according to Israeli officials, about 1,200 people and seize around 240 Israeli and foreign hostages.
Israel has vowed to “crush” Hamas in response and unleashed a withering military campaign that Gaza’s Hamas government says has killed nearly 15,000 people in the coastal territory.
AFP
