Hamas handed over three Israeli captives to the Red Cross in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis on Saturday in the sixth exchange since its ceasefire agreement with Israel.
Israeli-American Sagui Dekel-Chen, Israeli-Russian Sasha Trupanov and Israeli-Argentinian Yair Horn were paraded on a stage and told to address the crowd before their handover to the Red Cross.
There were doubts this week as to whether the release would take place, as Hamas accused Israel of violating the ceasefire deal and said it would postpone hostage releases.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said that Israel was to release 369 detainees in exchange, with 24 of them expected to be deported.
The vast majority, 333 people, are “prisoners from the Gaza Strip who were arrested after October 7”, the group said.
US President Donald Trump previously threatened Hamas with ‘all hell’ if the release of Israeli captives didn’t take place and in remarks on Friday said that if he were in Israel’s place he would take a “very hard” stance on Hamas.
