RAFAH, Palestinian Territories: Palestinian militants on Saturday freed two Israeli hostages, among the last live captives eligible for release under the first phase of a fragile truce that is also expected to see Palestinian prisoners released.
Freedom for the captives caps an emotional two days in Israel, where the family of another hostage, Shiri Bibas, earlier on Saturday confirmed receipt of her remains.
Militants escorted Tal Shoham and Averu Mengistu onto a stage in Rafah, southern Gaza. Shoham was made to address the gathering, flanked by armed and masked fighters dressed all in black, before both men were handed over to the Red Cross which then drove them away in a convoy.
Israeli security forces took custody of the men and returned them to Israeli territory, the military said.
In the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, hundreds gathered at a site known as ‘Hostages Square’ reacted with applause, some appearing to weep, as they watched a broadcast of the release.
Four other hostages are to be freed on Saturday in a separate ceremony in central Gaza.
Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum had published the names of the six Israelis to be freed. The list included Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert and Hisham al-Sayed as well as Mengistu and Shoham.
Sayed and Mengistu had been held in Gaza for around a decade.
The hostages were freed under the first phase of a ceasefire deal which began on January 19 and is due to expire in early March.
A Hamas source told AFP that the group planned to also release four hostages from central Gaza’s Nuseirat later today.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said Israel would free 602 inmates on Saturday as part of the exchange.
A spokeswoman for the NGO told AFP that most were Gazans arrested after the war began. She added that some of the prisoners would be deported outside of Israel and the Palestinian territories after their release.
Those expected to be expelled were serving heavy sentences.
The ceasefire has so far seen 21 living Israeli hostages freed from Gaza in exchange for more than 1,100 Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli jails.
Saturday’s release of living hostages followed the first transfer on Thursday of hostages’ bodies.
Hamas had said Shiri Bibas’s remains were among the four bodies returned on Thursday, but Israeli analysis concluded they were not in fact hers, sparking an outpouring of grief and anger.
Hamas then admitted “the possibility of an error or mix-up of bodies”, which it attributed to Israeli bombing of the area.
Late Friday the Red Cross confirmed the transfer of more human remains to Israel “at the request of both parties” but did not say whose they were.
“After the identification process at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, this morning we received the news we feared the most. Our Shiri was murdered in captivity and has now returned home to her sons, husband, sister, and all her family to rest,” the Bibas family said in a statement.