(8 Feb 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Salah al-Din Road, Gaza Strip – 8 February 2025
++QUALITY AS INCOMING++
1. Various of Hamas militants lining up as preparations begin for the release of Israeli hostages
2. Pan of militants
3. Wide of stage being set up
4. Zoom in on vehicles with militants on back
5. Wide of poster being put up on stage
6. Militants walking
7. Zoom out of militants on back of vehicles with guns mounted on them, vehicles leaving
STORYLINE:
Preparations were underway in Gaza as Hamas-led militants were set to free three more Israeli hostages on Saturday.
The hostages, all Israeli civilian men, were being released as part of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas which would also see Israel release dozens of Palestinian prisoners later in the day.
The hostages to be released on Saturday, according to Hamas and Israel, are: Eli Sharabi, 52; Ohad Ben Ami, 56; and Or Levy, 34.
All were abducted during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, that sparked the war.
Dozens of masked and armed Hamas fighters, some driving white pickup trucks with guns mounted on them, gathered Saturday morning at the location of the exchange, near the territory’s main north-south highway in Central Gaza.
It will be the fifth swap of hostages for prisoners since the ceasefire began on January 19.
Eighteen hostages and more than 550 Palestinian prisoners have already been freed in that time.
The first phase of the ceasefire calls for the release of 33 hostages and nearly 2,000 prisoners, the return of Palestinians to northern Gaza and an increase in humanitarian aid to the devastated territory.
Last week, wounded Palestinians were allowed to leave Gaza for Egypt for the first time since May.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s stunning proposal to transfer the Palestinian population out of Gaza, welcomed by Israel but vehemently rejected by the Palestinians and most of the international community, does not appear to have affected the current phase of the truce, which runs until early March.
But it could complicate talks over the second and more difficult phase, when Hamas is to release dozens more hostages in return for a lasting ceasefire.
Hamas may be reluctant to free more captives — and lose its main bargaining chip — if it believes the U.S. and Israel are serious about depopulating the territory, which rights groups say would violate international law.
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