GAZA: Palestinian militant group Hamas handed over three Israeli hostages on Saturday (Feb 1), in the latest stage of a truce aimed at ending the 15-month war in Gaza.
Ofer Kalderon, a French-Israeli dual national and Yarden Bibas were handed over to Red Cross officials in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis before being transferred to Israel. Israeli-American Keith Siegel was handed over separately a few hours later at the Gaza City seaport.
Bibas is the father of the two youngest hostages, baby Kfir, only 9 months old when he was kidnapped by Hamas-led gunmen on Oct 7, 2023, and Ariel, who was 4 at the time of the cross-border attack.
Hamas said in November 2023 that the boys and their mother Shiri, who was taken at the same time, were killed in an Israeli airstrike. There has been no word on them since.
Israel is expected to transfer 182 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, Hamas said.
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.
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.
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.
Kalderon, whose two children Erez and Sahar were released in the first hostage exchange in November 2023, and Bibas both briefly mounted a stage in Khan Younis, in front of a poster of Hamas figures including Mohammad Deif, the former military commander whose death was confirmed by Hamas this week, before being handed over to the Red Cross officials.
