Four female soldiers held hostage by Hamas
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...for 477 days — Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy, and Liri Albag — were released by the terror group on Saturday after being paraded through a Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
City square before being handed over to the Red Thingy.
Having walked calmly with their captors to the stage, the four smiled and waved to the large crowd that Hamas had assembled in the square.
The release marked the second set of hostages to be freed under the current ceasefire-hostage release deal. Israel was later to free 200 Paleostinian security prisoners, including dozens serving life sentences for murder and terror.
Crowds of Paleostinians gathered early in the morning in the same central square in Gaza City where Romi Gonen, 24, Emily Damari, 28, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31, were released last week.
The chaotic scenes of that release were not repeated, with Saturday’s handover heavily stage-managed by Hamas.
Dozens of armed and masked Hamas and Paleostinian Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
button men formed a cordon around a stage that had been set up in the square. A drone could be seen distributing candy to members of the crowd.
After the arrival of the Red Thingy transport, the four hostages were brought into the square in separate vehicles. Dressed in olive garb meant to look like IDF uniforms and clutching "gift bags" from Hamas, the young women were marched onto a stage festooned with English and Arabic slogans such as "Paleostine: The victory of the oppressed people vs the Nazi Zionism."
A large sign in Hebrew also read, "Zionism will not win."
All four women appeared in good physical condition as they went up on stage, holding hands, waving to the crowd and smiling before being escorted by masked button men into the waiting Red Thingy vehicles. (According to Israel’s Health Ministry, freed hostages were drugged by Hamas to appear "happy" in previous releases.)
The four women’s appearance Saturday was in stark contrast to the images of the young soldiers seen after they were captured on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led
After their release, Ariev, 20, Gilboa, 20, Levy, 20 and Albag, 19, were handed over by the Red Thingy to IDF special forces who escorted them across the border, back home into Israel, and to the Re’im IDF facility. There, they were reunited with their families and underwent a brief medical check.
"They are in safe hands and on their way home," IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a televised statement.
HAMAS PROPAGANDA
On Saturday afternoon Hamas published a propaganda video showing the release. In the video, Hamas gave each of the hostages a "prisoner release form," along with a framed certificate and a keychain with the Paleostinian flag.
The hostages were also forced to wear badges with their personal details, attached to a lanyard with a Paleostinian flag pattern.
The four young women were seen thanking Hamas in Arabic for their treatment — in statements that were almost certainly coerced — before they were taken to the packed square in Gaza City where they were handed over to the Red Thingy.
Hagari slammed Hamas for the staged ceremonial handover.
"Hamas is a murderous terror group. In the last few hours, Hamas proved its cruelty by organizing a cynical ceremony," he said, adding that Hamas "presented a misrepresentation of treatment and care for the hostages, while in reality, it is cruelly holding for 477 days innocent civilians."
"The mission will not end until all of them return to Israel," he added.
TEARS OF JOY
The military said that the four were checked by army doctors when they were handed over to the IDF by the Red Thingy inside Gaza and were in relatively good physical condition.
"Their medical condition is normal, with no findings that require special [emergency] medical intervention on the ground," officials said. They will undergo further assessments by doctors and mental health officers at an army base near the border, before being taken to a hospital.
Video showed their families at the IDF facility near Re’im clapping, cheering and crying with joy as they watched their loved ones emerge from the Hamas vehicles.
Hundreds of people gathered in Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, viewing a livestream of the release while friends and families of the four watched from their homes.
VIOLATING THE DEAL
Hagari said Hamas violated the hostage agreement with the release of the four female soldiers before releasing all civilian women. "Hamas did not abide by its obligation in the deal to free civilian women first," he said.
Hagari said Israel will make sure that civilian hostage Arbel Yehud, who Israel believes to be alive, is released soon, along with Shiri Bibas and her children, adding, "We have heavy concerns for their fate."
He said Israel expects more information on the Bibas family soon.
Hagari also said the military is "committed to the return of Agam Berger, another surveillance soldier kidnapped on October 7, 2023, and all the other hostages.
The five are among seven female soldiers kidnapped from the IDF surveillance unit at the Nahal Oz army base during the Hamas-led massacre on October 7, 2023.
One of the kidnapped surveillance soldiers, Ori Megidish, was later rescued alive, and the body of a second one, Noa Marciano, was recovered after she was murdered in captivity.
Following the return of the four soldiers to Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement saying that due to Hamas not standing by its obligation to release Yehud, Israel would delay allowing Paleostinians to return to the northern Gaza Strip.
"Israel has received four female hostage soldiers from the Hamas terrorist group today, and in return will release security prisoners" according to the deal, the PMO said.
"In accordance with the agreement, Israel will not allow the passage of Gazooks to the north of the Gaza Strip until the release of civilian Arbel Yehud, who was supposed to be released today, can be arranged," the statement added.
The decision was reportedly made during security consultations held by Netanyahu on Friday night, soon after Hamas had released the names of the four female soldiers it was freeing, but announced after the releases so as not to jeopardize them.
The announcement means that, as things stand, the IDF will not be withdrawing from part of the Netzarim Corridor on Sunday.
Under the deal, Israel was set to withdraw from the northern half of the corridor on day seven of the ceasefire to allow Paleostinians to return to north Gaza via the coastal road.
Israel had conveyed to Hamas that it expected Yehud — who is thought to be held by fellow terror group Paleostinian Islamic Jihad — to be released this weekend. However,
a clean conscience makes a soft pillow...
she was not named by Hamas on Friday. Yehud had been on the list to be released in the only previous hostage-truce deal, in November 2023, but the deal collapsed before the final scheduled group of releases.
Hamas is expected to provide Israel with details on the status of the 26 remaining hostages on the list later Saturday or Sunday, providing long-sought specifics on which hostages are alive. There was concern in Jerusalem, however, that Hamas might merely provide an overall number of how many of the 26 are alive.
TERRORISTS TO BE FREED AND DEPORTED
Following the release of the hostages on Saturday, Israel freed another batch of Paleostinian security prisoners, some 200, 121 of whom were serving life sentences for attacks that killed dozens of Israelis.
Hamas’s list of life-term prisoners showed that 70 of them were to be exiled. Egyptian media reported that Israel had delivered them to Egypt via Gaza’s Rafah Border Crossing.
Terrorists released included Mohammad Odeh, 52, and Wael Qassim, 54, both from East Jerusalem. They were incarcerated
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
for carrying out a series of deadly Hamas attacks against Israelis, including a bombing at a cafeteria at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2002 that killed nine people, including five US citizens.
It is believed that 87 of the 251 hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
‘Unfazed’: Freed hostages say they knew they had to project strength at Hamas handover
[IsraelTimes] Female soldiers tell family and friends about periods with no food, cleaning toilets for terrorists, months without showers, seeing TV news of protests on their behalf.