Second Round of Hamas Hostages Released

JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON — Hamas said its armed wing has handed over 13 Israeli hostages and four foreign nationals to the International Red Cross in Gaza Saturday night. The group is traveling to Egypt’s shared border with the enclave, a Qatari source told Reuters.

Qatar Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari echoed this in an earlier social media post, although his numbers were different, saying that the five Israeli women and eight children will leave Gaza with seven foreigners.

U.S. President Joe Biden spoke Saturday afternoon with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who told him the exchange was back on and that the International Committee of the Red Cross was moving to collect the hostages.

Biden was briefed throughout Saturday on the latest of the hostage deal implementation, said Adrienne Watson, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council.

Hours earlier, the armed wing of Hamas delayed Saturday’s scheduled second round of hostage releases because, it said, Israel had not met all the truce conditions, including allowing all promised aid trucks into northern Gaza.

Hamas spokesperson Osama Hamdan said only 65 of 340 aid trucks that had entered Gaza since Friday had reached northern Gaza, which was “less than half of what Israel agreed on.”

Qadura Fares, the Palestinian commissioner for prisoners, also said Israel had failed to fulfill the terms of the Palestinian prisoner releases based on seniority.

Avi Dichter, a member of Israel’s security Cabinet, told Channel 13 News that Israel was “abiding by the deal” with Hamas that Qatar had mediated.

The row over the truce had dashed hopes of a smooth second day of hostage and prisoner releases after 13 Israeli women and children were freed by Hamas on Friday, along with 11 foreigners. Israel released 39 Palestinian women and teenagers from its jails.

Eight of the freed Israeli hostages released Friday were treated at Israel’s Schneider Children’s Medical Center. The four children and four women all appeared to be in good physical condition, the medical center said.

On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, that he is determined to bring back all the hostages, whatever the circumstances.

United Nations emergency relief coordinator Martin Griffiths expressed hope Friday that “this first day of the humanitarian pause is followed by many others and that it leads to a longer-term humanitarian cease-fire — for the benefit of the people of Gaza, Israel and beyond.”

The pause has allowed the U.N. to increase its humanitarian assistance into and across Gaza. On Friday, 200 trucks were sent from Nitzana to the Rafah crossing, and 137 trucks of goods were offloaded at the reception point in Gaza by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East.

Four tanks of fuel and four tanks of cooking gas were transferred from Egypt to U.N. humanitarian aid organizations in the southern Gaza Strip via the Rafah crossing. The fuel and cooking gas are designated for operating essential humanitarian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.”

For many of the 2.3 million people who live in the Gaza Strip, the pause in the near-constant air and artillery strikes has offered a first chance to safely move around, take stock of the devastation, and seek access to the humanitarian aid pouring into Gaza.

Over the course of the cessation in fighting, Hamas is to release at least 50 hostages, and Israel 150 Palestinian prisoners, as part of an agreement struck during talks involving Israel, Palestinian militant groups, Qatar, Egypt and the United States.

Israel said the four-day stop in fighting would be extended an extra day for every 10 additional hostages freed by Hamas. A Qatari spokesperson said Doha hopes to broker another agreement to release more hostages from Gaza by the cease-fire’s fourth day.

“Chances are real” for an extension of the temporary halt to the war, Biden said in Friday remarks. He added that two American women and a 4-year-old American child remain among those missing.

Biden took partial credit for the negotiated release of hostages by Hamas and the freeing of prisoners by Israel, saying it was the “result of extensive U.S. diplomacy.”

Linda Gradstein wrote from Jerusalem and Steve Herman from Washington. Edward Yeranian contributed to this report from Cairo. Some information for this article was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.