Weekend bags are ready, piles of towels, clean clothes, toiletries, sanitary towels, diapers. There are coloring books and colorful children’s toys. Everything is ready to provide the hostages with the first necessities. The Israeli government shows in a video a room of the field hospital of the military base right next to Be’er Sheva. The released hostages will arrive there by helicopter from Egypt. They are then taken to different hospitals, where family are waiting for them.
Just after half past four on Friday afternoon the time has finally come. Israeli authorities report that the thirteen Israeli hostages, women and children, have been handed over to Red Cross workers in Egypt. This concerns four children between the ages of two and nine, including two sisters. Their mother was also released. And six women over seventy. They were taken hostage by Hamas terrorists after the bloody attack in southern Israel on October 7.
Journalists can watch through messy video footage in the parking lot next to the field hospital. There are many soldiers and ambulances with white and pink balloons on their doors. Just before that, the Thai Prime Minister had announced that twelve Thai hostages had also been released. They worked on the kibbutzim near the Gaza Strip and were also captured in the attack.
Israel released 24 Palestinian women and 15 teenage boys earlier in the day. The Palestinian prisoners were delivered to Hamas authorities at the Gaza-Egypt border.
The releases are part of a pause in fighting that began at 10 a.m. Friday and should last at least four days. During that period, 50 Israeli hostages would be exchanged for 150 Palestinian prisoners. Immediately after the release of the hostages, a truck with relief supplies from Egypt entered Gaza.
Battery psychologists
In addition to clothing and food, a battery of psychologists is ready for the Israeli hostages, clinical psychologist Rony Berger said during a press conference earlier in the day. He is an expert in the field of treating trauma after a terrorist attack or other major events. Berger fears serious trauma, especially for children. Especially because they had often seen serious suffering just before the hostage situation. They saw, among other things, how others were tortured and killed. Some hostages were taken away injured. In addition, much would depend on how hostages were held, he said. Had there been enough food and water and medical care? Children could have stayed with their parents. Had there been anything for them to do? Games? Toys? All these things are unknown until now. Parents could suffer from feelings of guilt, he said. They could not have protected their children. He expects that everyone involved will need quite some time to recover.
There is excited relief in Tel Aviv at the tent camp where family members and others involved have been bivouacking every day for seven weeks. But it is also ambivalent, say those present, because it took so long. And because so many people are still being held captive.
Intense sympathy
In Israel everyone feels deeply for the hostages and their families. On Friday evening, hundreds of people held an open-air Shabbat ceremony on the streets. All over Israel, people are walking around wearing T-shirts that say “Take them home now” and wearing yellow wristbands to express their condolences. The cities are covered in posters with the faces of the hostages.
In one of the tents near the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, sits Inbal Albini. She is the daughter of Chaim Perry (79), who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir’Oz and is being held in the Gaza Strip. He hid in the bedroom with his partner. When there was no escape, he told his wife to hide. He opened the door and shoved the man on the other side so hard that he fell to the ground. Albini: “Then he stepped out of the room and they took him away. But they didn’t see his wife. He is a strong man mentally. Stronger, I think, than someone of twenty. But he is 79.”
She is very happy that children are being released, she says. But it’s going too slow for her. “Hamas does not say what the next step is, which makes the families who are still waiting nervous. I think it’s a form of psychological warfare.”