4 female soldiers return to Israel after being freed by Hamas, paraded on Gaza stage
Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy, Liri Albag reunite with parents; Israel cancels planned return of Gazans to north, demands civilian Arbel Yehoud’s release be arranged
Four female soldiers held hostage by Hamas 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 Gaza City square before being handed over to the Red Cross.
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 Palestinian security prisoners, including dozens serving life sentences for murder and terror.
Crowds of Palestinians 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 Palestinian Islamic Jihad gunmen 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 Cross 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 “Palestine: 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 gunmen into the waiting Red Cross 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 terrorists stormed their Nahal Oz military base. Bloodied and frightened, they were dragged into Gaza in their pajamas.
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After their release, Ariev, 20, Gilboa, 20, Levy, 20 and Albag, 19, were handed over by the Red Cross 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 Palestinian flag.
The hostages were also forced to wear badges with their personal details, attached to a lanyard with a Palestinian 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 Cross.
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 Cross 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.
Some in the growing crowd wore Israeli flags; others held posters with the hostages’ faces.
“I’m extremely excited, exhilarated,” said onlooker Gili Roman. “In a heartbeat, in a split of a second, their lives are going to turn upside again, but right now for a positive and a good side.”
He said his sister was released in the only other ceasefire in November, but another relative was killed in captivity.
The friends and families of the four released hostages expressed their joy.
“Yes! Yes! Yes! Liri the hero,” Albag’s friends told the Ynet news site. “We saw Liri coming back. She waved her hand and she seems fine. It’s crazy. We were really worried, but she’s a hero with a huge smile.”
Gilboa’s family told Channel 12 news that they were elated to see her walking out of the Hamas vehicle.
“She is a hero. We were so happy to see her on her feet,” they say.
One of Levy’s friends told Ynet that the four women were “amazing” and that they had been concerned that they would not be on their feet.
“I have no words to describe the feelings now to see Naama back on her feet along with three other amazing, heroic girls,” the unnamed friend said.
“We don’t know what she went through there, and we can only imagine the hell. I thought the worst, I dreamed that she was coming out in the worst possible condition, sitting or lying down or worse,” the friend said.
Despite the joy, concern remained, particularly for other hostages who are on the list to be freed.
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 Yehoud, 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 abducted from the IDF surveillance unit at the Nahal Oz army base during the Hamas-led massacre on October 7, 2023.
One of the abducted 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 Yehoud, Israel would delay allowing Palestinians 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 Gazans to the north of the Gaza Strip until the release of civilian Arbel Yehoud, 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 Palestinians to return to north Gaza via the coastal road.
Israel had conveyed to Hamas that it expected Yehoud — who is thought to be held by fellow terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad — to be released this weekend. However, she was not named by Hamas on Friday. Yehoud 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 Palestinian 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 jailed 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 abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas has so far released seven hostages during the current ceasefire. The terror group released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that.
Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 40 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the body of an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014. The body of another IDF soldier, also killed in 2014, was recovered from Gaza this month.
