Israel Releases 183 Palestinian Prisoners, Hamas Frees Three Israeli Hostages

the fourth exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian Prisoners has taken place under the fragile ceasefire agreement reached between Israel and Hamas the names of the three Israeli male hostages were announced on Friday and shortly after 8:30 local time on Saturday Authur Calderon a jeel French Israeli citizen was the first to be released in a well organized Handover to the International Red Cross in carun in the southern Gaza Strip a few few minutes later he was followed by yarden bias the father of two infant children believed to have
died along with their mother during their captivity in Gaza now after receiving their papers the pair were then driven Away by the Red Cross and were officially handed over to the Israel Defense Forces they were then taken to hospital where they received medical checks and were reunited with family members the third named hostage Kei Sagal was handed over in a separate ceremony in Gaza City the 65-year-old was kidnapped with his wife Aviva seal in the October the 7th Hamas attacks a via was released after 51 days in
captivity and a temporary true steal in November 2023 and in exchange a Palestinian advocacy group says Israel is releasing 183 prisoners more than double the figure previously reported this was a scene as a bus containing 25 five prisoners was greeted in ramala the other group of prisoners headed back to Gaza and this was a scene in the past half hour as three more busloads of Palestinian prisoners arrived back in KH Unis well let’s go live to Jerusalem and speak to our correspondent Joe Inwood Joe bring us up to
date so the pictures we’ve seen in the last half hour or so that is the latest three buses I think it was of people who were in his Israeli jails Palestinians from Israeli jails being released back into their communities now it’s worth pointing out that some of those people have been in detention for a very long time accused of very serious crimes but others have been arrested far more recently and were people who are being held on what’s known as administrative detention here in Israel Israel’s
critics say they are being held without charge you had emotional scenes people mobbing the buses some people climbing trying to climb up the side in order to to touch the hands of their family members and they are now being released as part of this deal this is as we’ve seen this morning this is the second part of an exchange the first part was the release of those three men Keith Seagal um yardan bibas and offer Calderon they were released in what could only be described as a very stag managed process with Hamas Fighters
flanking them uh and po posters behind them of Hamas leaders who’ve been killed so this process has been much more organized much less chaotic than the one we saw on Thursday and therefore has gone through far more smoothly I think and I think probably will be to the satisfaction of both sides more than the events we saw a few days ago and tell us uh what the latest is with yarden bias offer Cardon and Keith seigar we understand that they’re now headed to a medical facility or should have arrived there
already yeah we’ve seen pictures coming through over the last hour or so of these three men certainly of two of them Yad and Bas and Offa Calderon I’ve seen really emotional scenes as they’re reunited with their families um we saw um offer calron being hugged by his four children it was clearly a very very emotional moment for them and yardan bbas with two of his relatives as well now of course for the bbas family this is a a Bittersweet day because yardan was taken on October the 7th along with
his wife sh and Ariel and cafir their two young children these two young redheaded boys being taken away held by their mother was one of the defining images of of that day and it became became it certainly and I think the fact that yardan has been released and those three have not is being taken as a sign that they are no longer alive I mean we have don’t have confirmation of that we should say but it was said by Hamas back in November 2023 so soon after the attacks that they had been killed died in an Israeli air strike uh that’s never
been confirmed by the Israeli government um but I think the fact that they’ve not been part of this deal and the Israelis have not pushed for them to be part of this first part of the deal suggest that they are no longer alive because there’s quite strict rules about the order in which people are released and a mother a civilian woman and two young children really would have been in the early stages of this and the fact they’re not I I think is being read here as as I say an indication that they are no longer
alive and Joe as you mentioned the Israeli government has not confirmed the that statement from Hamas that Ariel and cfir bivas were killed in an Israeli air strike I just want to read out a statement from Benjamin Netanyahu the Israeli Prime Minister saying welcome home yaden bibas offer Calderon and Keith seigal along with all the citizens of Israel and many around the world my wife and I embrace you upon your return our thoughts are now with Shiri Ariel cfir bivas as as and all our abductees we we will we will continue to work to
bring them home so Joe once again pointing to the fact that there is still more work to be done to bring back all those Israeli hostages yeah this is a three-part process and we’re only in stage one of the ceasefire agreement that first stage is saw 33 hostages named as coming back but there’s now a process of negotiation that has to take place between Israel and Hamas coordinated by the qataris the Egyptians the Americans to work out how a temporary ceasefire it is transformed into something more long term and
something which we’ll see many many more Palestinians released and the remaining Israeli hostages released so there’s there’s a process it’s it’s very it’s set out the deal between them has never been formally released but we have seen leaks of it and there’s according to those leaks a order in which people are released with women and women first then male civilians and also female um female soldiers in that and then eventually we move on to the male soldiers and then the bodies of hostages who have died
will be right at the end so we’re going to go through this process assuming it holds and I think that is really worth bearing in mind that although things are progressing as smoothly as either side could hope at the moment there’s no guarantee that this carries on you have in Israel you’ve got really really strong pressure from the hostage families and I know we’ve been speaking to them live throughout the day um here on BBC News and you hear from them that they want to get the families home
whatever the deal that needs to be done but there are other pressures in this country and there are other parts certainly within Politics on the the far right of of politics here and we should bear in mind that the coalition government of Benjamin Netanyahu has been dependent upon the far right right for its survival people who do not want to see a continuation of this deal they want to see a resumption of the fighting they think that destroying Hamas is a is a goal that should be achieved really whatever the cost and I think that the
feeling from hostage families is that the cost that the far right are willing to pay is the remaining hostages now there’s a real tension here and whether this deal continues is something which is going to come down to how the the kind of political forces in this country can balance off against each other and also it is worth pointing out the role of the Americans and notably Steve wickoff who’s the new special um Envoy here to the Middle East and of course new president Donald Trump because one of the things we’ve been hearing from
the hostage families is they credit him and they’ve mentioned him repeatedly with being the person who has got this deal done I think there are those in America on the Democratic side of politics who would say actually the deal that we’ve seen here was the one that was um suggested by President Joe Biden former President Joe Biden back in I believe May of last year and I think it’s also been said there’s been a lot of careful there was a lot of careful work between um former President Biden’s
AIDS and now president Trump’s aids to get this deal over the line but here it’s president Trump that’s getting the credit for this and I think the hostage families are going to be hoping that his self-proclaimed status as a peacemaker and of course as a deal maker is something which is going to see this deal continue and therefore the continued release of hostages but that really is something we’re going to have to wait to find out