Saturday 15 / February / 2025
Gaza: After a standoff between Hamas and Israel earlier this week, Hamas handed over three hostages on Saturday as part of the ceasefire deal signed last month.
Israeli-American Sagui Dekel-Chen, Israeli-Russian Sasha Trupanov and Israeli-Argentine Yair Horn were led over the stage in Khan Younis before being handed over to the Red Cross, which had earlier sent vehicles to the site.
Israel confirms it has received 3 hostages
Israel has said three hostages were returned after being handed over to the Red Cross in the Gaza Strip.
The three were released in what is the sixth hostage-prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas under the terms of a January 19 ceasefire deal.
The men — Iair Horn; Sagui Dekel Chen; and Alexander (Sasha) Troufanov, who holds Israeli and Russian citizenship — were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of the communities near the Gaza Strip that was targeted in the Hamas-led terror attacks on October 7, 2023.
Israel says it has released all 369 Palestinian prisoners as planned
The Israeli Prison Service confirmed on Saturday that it had freed 369 prisoners from the Ofer prison, near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, and the Kziot prison near Gaza, after first transferring them "from several prisons across the country."
Most were transported to Gaza but some also to the occupied West Bank.
Among those released in Ramallah on Saturday was Amir Abu Radaha, who had spent more than three decades in jail.
Radaha's sister told the French AFP news agency she had not slept in the night, as she had "kept thinking about whether Amir would be released this time or not."
Radaha himself said his release marked "a new birthday" for him.
Thirty-six of the prisoners released had been serving life sentences, and 24 who had committed very serious crimes were to be transferred abroad under the terms of the truce deal.
