Jerusalem According to the militant group, Hamas would release four female soldiers on Saturday as part of the ceasefire and hostage-release agreement it reached with Israel.
Ariev Karina According to a Telegram post by Abu Obeida, the spokesperson for Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, Danielle Gilboa, Naama Levy, and Liri Albag will be moved into Israeli custody in return for Palestinian captives.
If the releases are successful, they will be the second of their kind as part of a complicated ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that went into effect last Sunday, marking the end of 15 months of intense fighting and Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.
Hamas will release one civilian hostage for every 30 Palestinians detained by Israel and one female Israeli soldier for every 50 captives traveling in the opposite direction as part of the truce, which witnessed the initial releases on both sides last Sunday.
After one of its officials first indicated that the captives would be freed a day later than anticipated, Hamas said on Monday that it would next release them on Saturday, demonstrating the fluidity and fragility of the discussions.
The Israeli authorities said they had not been given the identities of the hostages who were scheduled to be released, causing a last-minute delay in the release of the first three Israeli hostages and 90 Palestinian detainees, all of whom were women and children, last Sunday.
Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher, and Emily Damari, a dual British citizen, were the first three Israeli captives to be freed. As Israeli soldiers progressively leave the Gaza Strip, Hamas has stated that it intends to free 33 hostages over a six-week period.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a terror strike on Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage. This marked the start of the fighting in Gaza. According to health officials in the enclave, Israel killed around 47,000 individuals during its air and land attack on Gaza, the majority of whom were civilians.
Hamas plans to free the four prisoners on Saturday. The detainees were captured while working as surveillance soldiers at the Nahal Oz military installation on the Gaza border. They had to keep an eye out for any suspicious military activity within the enclave. Agam Berger, the fifth captured female soldier, will stay in Gaza.
On October 7, 2023, a number of their coworkers were killed, but video footage of the women who survived their captivity has gone viral on social media and in the media.
Days after her sister was abducted, Sasha told the Christian Broadcasting Company that 20-year-old Karina Ariev had warned her family about the impending battle for three months before Hamas’ terror attack.
According to Sasha, who added that her sister had called her the morning of the Hamas attack, “they knew something, the girls who were the eyes of the country.” She claimed to have heard gunfire and screams in the distance and to have received a message from her sister alerting her to the presence of terrorists.
On the day of her kidnapping, footage surfaced of Ariev in a Jeep with her hands bound together and her face covered with blood. She was still alive, according to a video published by Hamas in January of last year.
In August, her mother Orly revealed on the podcast Meaningful People that Daniella Gilboa, now 20, had notified her commanders in the run-up to October 7 that she had witnessed individuals she believed to be Hamas terrorists seeming to get ready for an attack.
Orly claimed to have heard from Daniella the morning of the assault, but she was unaware that her base was the site of the explosions her daughter had described. It wasn’t until she got a message saying, “Pray for me,” that she realized how dangerous her daughter was.
Daniella’s mother claimed to have feared the worst on the first night following her abduction when she couldn’t recognize her in any of the video. The following day, Daniella’s younger sister and boyfriend recognized her from her pajamas and ponytail in videos that went viral.
Liri Albag loved to travel and take pictures, according to her mother Shira. We are all living under the shadow of the kidnapping, Shira said to the crowd during a public event last fall.
Shira wrote a public letter to Liri about her daughter on February 4, the day of her 19th birthday, and the Israeli news outlet Ynet published it.
Since you are the one who sings, there is no music in the house. There isn’t any cooking noise in the middle of the night. “My heart hurts because I miss you so much,” she wrote.
One of the five women, Naama Levy, 20, is more well-known due to the fact that she was captured on camera in Gaza early on October 7.
She is shown barefoot, in a black T-shirt and grey sweatpants, with blood on her ankles and her hands bound behind her back in the video that was sent to NBC News. She is seen being pulled by her light brown hair and pushed into a car by a man with a gun and a flak jacket. One of her arms is covered in blood.
In a second video that Levy’s family shared, guys were seen tying her hands behind her back when she was captured. Levy is heard telling them in Hebrew that she has friends in Palestine, her face bloodied.
In a speech last year in honor of International Women’s Day, her mother, Ayelet Levy Shacher, claimed that Naama became everyone’s daughter because of one awful video that had nothing to do with her prior to October 7.
According to Levy Shacher, her daughter had worked at a refugee children’s nursery school prior to the incident and had participated in a youth program that promoted peace.
“I share her belief in the goodness of people,” Levy Shacher added.
Raf Sanchez reported from Tel Aviv, and Tovah Lazaroff from Jerusalem. From London, Astha Rajvanshi reported.