Posted on 11/24/2023 8:40:37 AM PST by Todd_Gray
GAZA/ISRAEL-GAZA BORDER, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Hamas fighters released 24 hostages on Friday during the first day of the war's first truce, the Red Cross said, including Israeli women and children and Thai farm workers.
Nine hours after guns fell silent for the first time in seven weeks, the International Red Cross said it had begun an operation to facilitate the transfer of hostages in Gaza to Israel in return for Palestinians held in Israeli jails. It later said 24 hostages had been freed in Gaza.
"The deep pain that family members separated from their loved ones feel is indescribable. We are relieved that some will be reunited after long agony," said Fabrizio Carboni, the International Committee of the Red Cross's regional director for the Near and Middle East.
Israeli media reported that 13 women and children had been handed over to the Red Cross and to an Egyptian security team assisting their release. The Israeli government and Hamas did not immediately confirm this.
In addition to the Israeli women and children due to be released on the first day of the four-day truce, Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said in a social media post that a separate group of 12 Thai workers had been freed.
A source briefed on the negotiations said the release of the Thais, who were all men, was unrelated to the truce negotiations and followed a separate track of talks with Hamas mediated by Egypt and Qatar. Thai farmworkers employed in southern Israel were among around 240 hostages dragged back to Gaza by gunmen when Hamas fighters launched a killing spree on Oct. 7. The source said the number of Thais released could be 11 or 12.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Not only that, but they intercepted a Palestinian rocket today too.
They were taken hostage in Israel, we haven’t you been watching the news since October 7. Biden says his few is seven, and as many as 40 Americans are being held hostage.
I couldn't agree more. The hostages have become very valuable to them because they were getting their a$$es kicked militarily.
I think it is also a wedge to Israeli unity. Families who hope or think their missing relatives could be returned will drive "peace" efforts for more releases. No one gains more from this than the north vietnamese hummus.
Oh, in a war there aren’t non-combatant victims? I didn’t know that!
And what makes you think that the hostages don’t support one side or the other?
What is your BS?! HAMAS, elected and supported by Palestinians barbarically attacked Israel on Oct over 7, killing, raping, and take hostages, including Americans. Only two Americans have since been released and 9-40+ are still being held by HAMAS and other Palestinians. In my opinion, HAMAS should be hunted down like the animals they are and every last one of them killed. And their supporters? Do you suggest normal relations with them, like Biden and Democrats, let them come to America? They have bloody, barbaric, and evil blood on their hands.
I find it interesting that none of the hostages either released or scheduled to be were American. They fear Israel more than they do the US. Biden will bend over backwards to get a basketball player who was found guilty, and rightly so, violating their drug policies leaving some journalists still sitting in Russia but he won’t make demands to get Americans that were litally colateral damge being caught in the middle during a terrorist attack that are still in Gaza.
Meantime, a red cross led group was able to deal to get hostages out of Gaza, again none ours, in trade for 150 convicted terrorist who murdered and raped.
We need a better deal. Maybe if they don’t want to play ball, we take ours and drop it right on their laps. Sometimes a little incentive can go a long way. And since we are being fired upon anyway, and are going to get into this sooner or later, why not sooner? Makes for a better impression. And for once, it’s for us and not someone else.
wy69
I see that no high-value American hostages were released.
Brandon’s writing a lot of checks today that the terrorists know other countries won’t write.
*SPIT*
They probably figure Biden will give them $1 billion per American citizen held hostage, 9 to 40 is a lot of billions. Plus Hamas prevented Americans already in Gaza to leave, so they might be hostages, though I’m suspicious about them being supporters of a HAMAS, maybe they need a visit to Gitmo.
The article says that Israel released 150 Palestinian women and children held in Israeli jails. What?????????
That's to ensure that the offspring will be Muslim - per Islamic law.
They will force the hostages to say The Shahada as a condition of being released, effectively becoming Muslims.
That too.
This is nothing more than Hamas ‘Blackmail’.....its’ Blackmail top to bottom.
Disgusting. 48 days of Americans held hostage. Biden is on vacation, reportedly fingers crossed, hoping the Americans being held hostage might be released. Pretty please.
No American hostages released? Biden sure shows leadership.
What’s BS is your logic, or lack of it. You don’t make any sense.
If you’re serious about destroying the enemy, why do you let a few hostages hold you back. Why aren’t they simply another casualty of war, like the other thousands of civilian casualties?
And in doing that aren’t you telling the enemy that the way to stop you is to get more hostage?
I know it seems cruel to abandon hostages, but war is a cruel game, and if you’re going to win you have to play that game.
I wonder if in World War 2, we would have stopped fighting for the sake of a few hostages.
Israel got a raw deal - 50 innocent people captured for 150 violent Palestinians criminals, plus 200 aide trucks every day for 4 days incluing fuel, plus pause in war.
It’s just blackmail.
There is precedent for that being reversed. Moses Maimonides was forcibly converted to Islam, but when he went to Egypt the authorities there let him revert to Judaism due to the conversion having been forced.
Thousands?? You apparently believe Hamas numbers.
Sounds so innocent. But... these were hard core criminals. The "children" were teens that stabbed and assaulted Israelis. Some of the Jewish victims of stabbings and shootings by these Palestinian criminals are complaining about the releases, as they fear the criminals will come back to finish the job by killing the victims.
These animals were released in a 3-for-1 to get back innocent Jewish hostages.
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