(22 Feb 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rafah, Gaza Strip – 22 February 2025
1. Various of Red Cross vehicles arriving
2. Red Cross workers in front of car
3. Various of crowds
4. Various of vehicles carrying hostages arriving
5. Red Cross worker talking to people in vehicle carrying hostages
6. Red Cross worker signing documents
7. Various of Tal Shoham getting out of car and walking to stage
8. Various of Avera Mengistu getting out of car and walking to stage
9. Shoham and Mengistu on stage
10. Various of Shoham and Mengistu getting into Red Cross vehicles
11. Various of Red Cross vehicles driving away
STORYLINE:
Hamas released two Israeli hostages on Saturday as part of the latest exchange under the terms of a ceasefire deal.
Militants were set to release another four hostages later Saturday.
The six Israeli men set for release are expected to be the last living hostages freed during the ceasefire’s first phase.
The first two hostages released were Tal Shoham, 40, who was taken from the community of Kibbutz Beeri, and Avera Mengistu, 39, who has been held since crossing into Gaza on his own years ago.
Eliya Cohen, 27; Omer Shem Tov, 22; Omer Wenkert, 23; and Hisham Al-Sayed, 36, were also set to be handed over.
Cohen, Shem Tov and Wenkert were abducted from a music festival during the October 7 attack.
Like Mengistu, Al-Sayed has also been held since crossing into Gaza on his own years ago.
On Saturday morning, hundreds of people gathered in a rainy Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip as Hamas prepared to release the hostages.
More than 600 Palestinians jailed in Israel will be freed in exchange, the Palestinian prisoners media office said Friday.
The prisoners set for release include 50 serving life sentences, 60 with long sentences, 47 who were released under a previous hostage-for-prisoner exchange and 445 prisoners from Gaza arrested since the war began.
Hamas has said it will also release four more bodies next week, completing the first phase of the ceasefire.
If that plan is carried out, Hamas would retain about 60 hostages, about half of whom are believed to be alive.
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