Israel and Hamas have completed this Saturday the second exchange of the Alto El Fuego agreement in Gaza. The Islamist movement has first released apparent good health that maintained hostages since October 7, 2023. He has done so in an effective ceremony held in Gaza and broadcast live to everyone. With this triumphalist scenery he has also launched the message that, at least in appearance, he maintains the reins of the Strip, an image that the Netanyahu Benjamin government sought to avoid.
Immediately afterwards, Israel has fulfilled, releaseing 200 Palestinian prisoners, from which he sent 16 to Gaza and 70 to Egypt, from where they will be transferred to Tunisia, Algeria and Turkey, countries that have offered to host them. The rest of the inmates have been enthusiastically received in the West City of Ramala for a crowd that has taken them in volandas while singing songs of joy and supporting Hamas and the armed struggle. The exchange has been accompanied from the first hour of reproaches and mutual accusations of non -compliance, which show distrust between the parties and that support a process designed to last months and lead to a high fire in a high.
The exchange has begun in the morning. The four young Israeli have landed aboard a helicopter in a hospital on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Before they had been delivered by the Palestinian militiamen to members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (CICR), who have transferred them to the Israeli authorities already out of the strip.
For each of these military, 50 Palestinian inmates have abandoned Israeli prisons. Unlike the first exchange, this Saturday is more difficult to digest for the Israelis. 121 were sentenced to perpetuity for blood crimes and 79, long sentences.
The majority of those who fulfilled life imprisonment have been deported and have not allowed them to meet their families, or return to their places of residence. The Palestinian Prison Society has announced that among them is considered Dean, Mohamed al Tous, 69 and imprisoned by Israel since 1985.
The other 114 have been received as heroes in Ramala, the city of Bank in which the National Palestinian Authority (ANP) is headquarters. Draw for the gray chandales of the prison service they have been one by one, but with relative speed. Some appeared such bad health (the ultra -rightist minister of national security, Itamar Ben Gvir,) that the crowd opened a corridor and limited themselves to telling them “that you heal.”
The youngest or apparent better way hugged their loved ones, before starting speeches that went from joy to gratitude to Hamas or the people of Gaza. Some went directly with a flag or a hamm tape on their forehead while people sang slogans such as: “The people love the Kasam brigades” (in reference to the armed arm of Hamas) and “one bullet on another bullet, fire by fire, for the freedom of our prisoners. ”
Hamza Matuk, Hamás inmate, had 50 years. He has done it with 32, after serving ten of penalty. “There are no words to describe my feelings or my happiness,” he said between hug and hug. “I only knew that he would leave the prison when they took us out. I have no idea what I’m going to do with myself. I feel lost, but yes, I’m going home. ”
“I swear by God that during the last four days I do not even remember having drunk a glass of water,” said another released prisoner, Eyad Yaradat, from Yenín, after 20 years between bars. It was in insulation regime, with life imprisonment and additional 34 years.
In a first reaction, the Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari, has accused Hamas of breaking the pact for not prioritizing the return of civilians. Prime Minister Benjamín Netanyahu has announced that he will not allow the return of the Gazaties displaced by the war to the north of the enclave – as planned with the arrival of the second week of truce – until the release of Arbel is clarified Yehud, a civil kidnapped at the Kibutz Nir Oz that should have already been delivered. Islamic jihad has responded that it does not consider it civil. Hamas, which warns of possible problems for the truce if that blockade of citizens occurs, has advanced that it is alive and will be delivered in the next exchange. The Israeli part demands evidence. Despite tension and reproaches, none of the parties has broken the process.
“Zionism will not overcome”
Hamas has organized the scene of the delivery of the four hostages on a stage, in a square in the city of Gaza. A poster prayed: “Zionism will not beat.” Another: “Palestine, the victory of the oppressed people against Nazi Zionism.” There, the delivery of Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa and Naama Levy, all 20 years old, and Liri Albag, from 19, between a Red Cross employee and a masked militiaman, were signed.
Moments later, after arriving aboard civilians without badges, the four captives, dressed in green uniform, have been presented on that same platform. They have seen them by the hand, between smiles and making gestures of celebration to those present. Then, they have been introduced into an SUV of the Red Cross. Each one wore a bag with the Hamás armed arm badge, like the first three released, last weekend.
The most close to the hostages have followed and celebrated the releases through screens from facilities, before being able to hug them, according to images that the authorities have disseminated. Meanwhile, hundreds of present in the one known as, the main place of the claims of the families of those kidnapped by Hamas, have expressed their happiness while they followed the release on screens. “His return today represents a moment of light in the dark, a moment of hope” while “serves as a painful reminder of the urgency of bringing back to the 90 hostages that are still in Gaza,” the main forum that groups their families.
In the battle for story and propaganda, Israeli authorities try to avoid jubilation scenes among the Palestinians. To some families, especially in the busy part of Jerusalem, when yours are released. It is not so in the cities of the West Bank, where the ANP has administrative and security control and dozens of prisoners are reunited with their relatives with artifice fires in the sky.
The responsible and militiamen of Hamas have prepared in detail the delivery of the captives within the strip to multiply the impact on a mass audience promoted by social networks and the media. This has happened in the releases of three civilian women, Sunday, and of the four soldiers this Saturday. The Islamic Resistance Movement raises its particular order after more than 15 months of a war in which Netanyahu’s main objective was to eradicate it politically and militarily, after leading the attack of October 7, 2023 in Israel in which about 1,200 people They were killed and more than 250, kidnapped.
The controversy does not escape the ins and outs of the kidnapping of these four military, belonging to a group of soldiers dedicated to watching Gaza from the nearby base of Nahal Oz, one of the places attacked by Hamas. The Israeli authorities, according to the testimonies collected from some of them and their families, made a deaf ear to the alerts launched around the preparation of the great attack. The four were also companions of the Hispanicoisraelí, 19, who died that day. She was the daughter of Eduardo Villalobo, professor of microbiology at the University of Seville, and Galit Sinvany, an Israeli researcher.
