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Bus carrying Palestinian prisoners and detainees arrives in West Bank
Live TV footage has shown a bus carrying Palestinian prisoners and detainees from Israeli prisons arriving in the West Bank. Crowds cheering can be seen surrounding the bus.
Key events
Hamas official says Israel putting Gaza truce in danger of ‘collapse’
A senior Hamas official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Saturday that Israel’s “lack of commitment” to the Gaza ceasefire has put it in danger of collapse.
Israel’s “procrastination and lack of commitment in implementing the first phase … certainly exposes this agreement to danger and thus it may stop or collapse,” said Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau.
Away from Gaza and Israel, Lebanon formed a new government on Saturday, Lebanon’s presidency announced.
The presidency said it would be a 24-member cabinet. It was formed after more than three weeks of talks with rival political parties in Lebanon – where government posts are parceled out according to sect – and days of deadlock over the ministers, usually named by Hezbollah and its ally Amal.
Sammy Gecsoyler
The British family of an Israeli hostage freed from Gaza on Saturday have described their “bittersweet” emotions, expressing joy and relief at his release but concern over his “sunken” appearance.
Eli Sharabi, 52, was released from Gaza on Saturday, along with two other hostages, in exchange for 183 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons as part of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
Sharabi’s brother-in-law, Stephen Brisley, who lives in Bridgend, Wales, told the Guardian that he was feeling a “kaleidoscope of emotions” after Sharabi’s release.
Brisley described his joy and relief at seeing Sharabi alive “because, up until yesterday afternoon, we didn’t even know whether he was alive or dead”. He said this was “very much tempered by the distress of seeing the state that he’s in”.
“You can see the clothes are hanging off of him. You can see his face was gone. The spark and the light has gone from his eyes. His cheeks are sunken.”
“It’s a bittersweet day because we don’t know, other than the fact that he’s alive, exactly what state he’s in physically and mentally,” said Brisley. “But it’s the moment we’ve been we’ve been waiting for. I’m just trying to focus on the joy of that and leave the more distressing elements for another time while we help him to recover.”
Sharabi was at his home in Be’eri kibbutz with his British-born wife and their two teenage daughters when Hamas militants entered it on 7 October 2023.
The armed men shot their dog before locking Lianne, Sharabi’s wife, and their two daughters in their safe room and setting it on fire. Their bodies were later identified and Sharabi was taken to Gaza along with his brother, Yossi.
Crowds greeted buses filled with dozens of freed Palestinian prisoners and detainees as they arrived in the West Bank. Israel released 183 more Palestinian men as part of its ceasefire agreement with Hamas, who had earlier released three male Israeli hostages.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) have this from the Israeli army in relation to the news that it struck a Hamas weapons depot in the Deir Ali area, southern Syria:
Israeli “fighter jets conducted an intelligence-based strike on a weapons storage facility belonging to the Hamas terrorist organisation in the area of Deir Ali in southern Syria”, the military said in a statement.
Away from Gaza now and Reuters is reporting the Israeli army said it had struck a Hamas weapons depot in the Deir Ali area in southern Syria.
We will bring you more details on that as and when we get them.
Gaza ceasefire hostage exchange – a round-up of today’s events so far
If you are just joining us, here’s a update on what has happened today in the fifth Gaza ceasefire exchange:
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Three more Israeli hostages – Or Levy, Eli Sharabi and Ohad Ben Ami – were handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip earlier today.
Hamas accuses Israel of ‘slow killing’ of Palestinian prisoners and detainees
Hamas accused Israel of adopting a policy it described as the “slow killing” of Palestinian prisoners and detainees held in Israeli jails after seven Palestinians freed on Saturday were admitted to hospital, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“The fact that seven prisoners were transferred to hospitals immediately after their release … reflects the systematic assaults and mistreatment of our prisoners by the Israeli prison authorities,” Hamas said in a statement, adding that it was “part of the policy of the extremist Israeli government, which pursues the slow killing of prisoners inside the prisons”.
Lawyers for British-linked hostages in Gaza have shared a statement on the release of Eli Sharabi today. It says they and their clients, the Sharabi and Brisley families, are “delighted” that Eli Sharabi has been released but are “saddened but unfortunately not surprised at Eli, Ohad and Or’s physical condition and the grotesque spectacle of their release”.
In the statement, the lawyers say that all other hostages still being held in Gaza “must be unconditionally and immediately freed”.
The lawyers’ statement continues:
We would like to pay tribute to Eli’s family, including our extraordinary clients Stephen Brisley and Sharon Sharabi, who despite their trauma and grief have campaigned relentlessly for the release of Eli, Yossi and all other hostages for 16 months, alongside their amazing family friend Annabel Sheldon. We hope that they will now begin on a road to some kind of peace, and that the public will grant them the space they need to do so.”
Work on the second stage of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement, aimed at securing the release of about 60 male hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, has begun and an Israeli negotiating team was expected to fly on Saturday to Doha, Israeli media reported on Friday.
But Hamas’s claim that Israel has delayed the entry of hundreds of trucks carrying aid supplies food and other humanitarian supplies as agreed under the truce deal – an accusation Israel denies – shows how little trust there is between the two sides, as Reuters reports.
The Israeli military said on Friday that commanders were conducting situational assessments ahead of the next phase of the agreement currently being discussed, with troops deployed at various points around the Gaza Strip.
