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Hamas released the first two of the six Israeli hostages expected to be liberated from families in Gaza on Saturday, as it approaches unstable launches through the end of the first stage.
Avera Mengesto, an Ethiopian man, 39 years old, described as his family as mentally ill and held since 2014, and Tal Shuham, 40, was released at a ceremony that was elaborate in Rafah, south of Gaza, the Red Cross.
Mensto was held by Hamas after wandering in Gaza on his own, while the captive Shawham was taken during the Palestinian group’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The Israeli army confirmed their release, saying they were transferred to southern Israel by the Red Cross.
Ilya Cohen, 27, is to be released, and Shaim Tof, 22, and ordered Winker, 23 years later on Saturday, along with Hisham Al -Sayed, 36 years old, is a Palestinian bidin with Israeli nationality, such as Mingsto, is considered a sick. Mentally has been held since 2015.
In exchange for the release of all six, Israel is scheduled to liberate 600 Palestinian prisoners, including hundreds of detainees without a charge or trial, and 110 eliminations of life or long rulings after being convicted of military prisons because of violence against the Israelis.
Including Mubadala today, Hamas will launch 29 hostages, four of whom are dead, compared to more than 1,600 Palestinian prisoners.
The six are the last living hostages to be replaced by hundreds of Palestinian prisoners as part of the first stage of the ceasefire, which will end on Thursday with the release of four additional bodies.
The second stage, which the negotiations began to be serious, can witness a permanent end to 15 months of war in exchange for the release of about 60 remaining hostages or so, which include male soldiers and also supposed to have died.
The first stage approached six weeks of collapse, prompting interventions from the United States, Egypt and Qatar to help keep it on the right track.
In the latest flash point, Hamas released an unidentified body this week instead of Sherry Pipas, an Israeli mother, 32 years old, two young children were also taken in the October 7 attacks. Their bodies were issued earlier this week.
Late Friday, Hamas released a second body, after which it was identified by Israeli forensic pathologists such as Pepas, Umm Kafr and Ariel. Hamas blamed chaos inside the shattered Palestinian pocket for delivering it on the wrong body.
In Israel, the seizure of the Pepas family – the father of children alive in February in the first stage of exchanges – has become a Hamas brutality symbol in the attack that sparked the war in Gaza and the Israeli authorities’ failure to protect them.
The Israeli army said on Friday that the autopsy showed that both children were killed during their families, instead of killing him by an Israeli air strike, as Hamas said since November 2023.
“The young terrorists did not divorce the young boys – he killed them with their bare hands,” said the Israeli military spokesman. “Then, they committed horrific works to cover up these atrocities.”
Despite the first stage of the ceasefire, Israel sent a low -level negotiation team to Cairo to hold talks in the second stage, but it has not been advanced a little yet. Hamas indicated its willingness to continue negotiations in the second stage.
Hamas killed at least 1,200 people in Israel in a cross -border raid on October 7, and took about 250 hostages, according to local officials. Health officials in Gaza said that Israel’s revenge had killed nearly 50,000 Palestinians, and left the pocket – home to more than 2.3 million Palestinians – in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe.