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, reports Reuters.
An Israeli campaign group said the release of three hostages by Hamas on Saturday “brings a ray of light” after more than 15 months of captivity in the Gaza Strip.
“Their release today brings a ray of light in the darkness, offering hope and demonstrating the triumph of the human spirit,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement after captives Yarden Bibas, Keith Siegel and Ofer Kalderon were freed, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
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, reports Reuters.
Here are some of the latest images coming in via the newswires:
French president Emmanuel Macron shared his joy on Saturday over the release of Franco-Israeli hostage Ofer Kalderon “after 483 days of unimaginable hell” as a captive held in Gaza, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Macron said on X he shared the “relief and joy” of Kalderon’s family and friends. The 54-year-old was abducted on 7 October 2023 from the Nir Oz kibbutz along with his son and daughter.
Hamas handed over US-Israeli dual national Keith Siegel, the last of the three hostages released on Saturday by the group, to the Red Cross at Gaza port, live television footage showed.
Yarden Bibas and Ofer Kalderon, a French-Israeli dual national, were handed over by Hamas earlier on Saturday to a Red Cross official in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, in the latest stage of a phased exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
Red Cross vehicles have been seen on live TV arriving ahead of the expected handover of the third Israeli hostage, reports Reuters.
More details soon …
In Israel, north of Tel Aviv, the family of released hostage Ofer Kalderon hugged and cheered as they saw the images of him climbing on to the stage in Khan Younis and being transferred to the Red Cross.
“Ofer is coming home!” they said, arms lifted to the sky in Kfar Saba.
Associated Press also reports that Kalderon’s two children, Erez and Sahar, were abducted alongside him and released during a ceasefire in November 2023. Family members said they weren’t able to recover from their ordeal until their father returned.
“We are sorry it took so long, Ofer,” said Eyal Kalderon.
We will soon be a whole family again. We hope other families will soon feel like this, until the last family.
Our full report from Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem on this morning’s hostage releases is here with all the key developments.
More pictures have arrived of the Hamas handover of Israeli hostage Yarden Bibas to the Red Cross in southern Gaza in the fourth release of the current truce.
The Israeli military said the two freed hostages had now crossed into Israeli territory after they were released by Hamas on Saturday.
“A short while ago, the returning civilian hostages, Ofer Kalderon and Yarden Bibas, crossed the border into Israeli territory” accompanied by Israeli forces, AFP quoted the military as saying in a statement.
