(30 Jan 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Re’im, Israel – 30 January 2025
1. Helicopter landing in preparation for the release of hostages
2. Police at the scene
3. Helicopter landing
STORYLINE:
Helicopters landed at a military base in southern Israel on Thursday in preparation for the release of further hostages from Gaza.
Hamas is set to free three more Israeli hostages as well as five Thai captives on Thursday, and Israel is to release another 110 Palestinian prisoners, in the third such exchange since a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip took hold earlier this month.
The truce is aimed at winding down the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and Hamas, whose October 7, 2023, attack into Israel sparked the fighting.
It has held despite a dispute earlier this week over the sequence in which the hostages were released.
The Israelis set to be released are Arbel Yehoud, 29, Agam Berger, 20 — who was abducted along with four other female soldiers who were freed Saturday — and Gadi Moses, an 80-year-old man.
The identities of the Thai nationals who will be released were not immediately known.
A number of foreign workers were taken captive along with dozens of Israeli civilians and soldiers during Hamas’ attack.
Twenty-three Thais were among more than 100 hostages released during a weeklong ceasefire in November 2023.
Israel says eight Thais remain in captivity, two of whom are believed to be dead.
Of the people set to be released from prisons in Israel, 30 are serving life sentences after being convicted of deadly attacks against Israelis.
Zakaria Zubeidi, a prominent former militant leader and theater director who took part in a dramatic jailbreak in 2021 before being rearrested days later, is also among those set to be released.
In the first phase of the ceasefire, Hamas is set to release a total of 33 hostages, including women, children, older adults and sick or wounded men, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
The deal calls for Israel and Hamas to negotiate a second phase in which Hamas would release the remaining hostages and the ceasefire would continue indefinitely.
The war could resume in early March if an agreement is not reached.
Hamas started the war when it sent thousands of fighters storming into Israel on October 7, 2023.
The militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250.
Israel’s air and ground war was among the deadliest and most destructive in decades.
More than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed, over half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were militants.
AP video shot by Alon Bernstein
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