by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Mohammad Salem and Humeyra Pamuk
GAZA/TEL AVIV (Reuters) – Eight new hostages, including Franco-Israeli Mia Schem, were released on Thursday by Hamas on the seventh day of the truce in the Gaza Strip, whose negotiators are still discussing a further extension of 24 hours.
The day’s sequence of releases began in the afternoon with Mia Schem and another woman, and continued in the evening with the transfer to Israel of six other hostages, the Israeli army announced.
The spokesperson for the Qatari Foreign Ministry, which is leading the mediation efforts, said that two Israeli-Russian hostages released on Wednesday had been added to the day’s total to reach the figure of “around 10 hostages per day”, condition posed by Israel to extend the truce. Thirty Palestinian detainees will be released in exchange, he added.
The Qatari channel Al Jazeera broadcast images showing armed Hamas members handing over Mia Schem, 21, and the other hostage to Red Cross representatives in Gaza City.
The two women were then taken to the Israeli military base of Hatzerim, where Mia Schem found her mother and brother, according to images released by the Israeli Prime Minister’s office.
“It is a great joy that I share with his family and all French people,” reacted French President Emmanuel Macron on the X platform. “I also express my solidarity with all those who remain hostages of Hamas. France is taking action with his partners to obtain their release as soon as possible.”
Mia Schem was kidnapped like many other participants at a music festival near the Gaza Strip, targeted by Hamas during its attack in southern Israel on October 7. During her captivity, she then appeared in a video released by Hamas receiving treatment for an injured arm.
“I don’t want to ask her any questions because I don’t know what she went through,” her father David said when asked by Channel 12 what words he would say when he found her.
Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement agreed Thursday morning to extend their truce for a seventh consecutive day as mediators from Qatar and Egypt continue their intense diplomatic activity with the United States to try to extend the cessation of hostilities more permanently. .
The objective of this truce is to allow further releases of hostages and the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, devastated by the Israeli military operation carried out in retaliation for the attack of October 7, which left around 1,200 dead in southern Israel.
ANTONY BLINKEN KEEPING THE PRESSURE ON
Today’s releases took place despite a deadly shooting in Jerusalem claimed by the armed wing of Hamas. If it does not seem to have derailed discussions on a further extension of the truce, this attack carried out by two Hamas brothers, who killed three people by opening fire on a bus stop, was interpreted by Israel as further proof of the need to eradicate the Palestinian movement to guarantee its security.
Israel demands the release of at least 10 hostages a day to extend the truce after about seven weeks of intensive bombings and ground incursions in the Gaza Strip, which have left more than 15,000 dead according to authorities in Hamas-controlled Gaza. .
The latest announcement of an extension of the truce came Thursday morning only a few minutes before it was due to expire, with the Israeli army explaining that it had received a list of hostages to be released during the day.
“In view of the efforts made by the mediators to continue the process of releasing the hostages and subject to the terms of the agreement, the operational pause will continue,” the army said.
Negotiations continued Thursday evening to try to extract an additional 24 hours of truce.
Of the approximately 240 hostages kidnapped on October 7 in southern Israel, the truce in force since last Friday allowed the release of 97, including 70 Israeli women and children, each freed in exchange for three Palestinian women or adolescents detained in prisons Israelis, plus 27 foreigners released under side agreements with their respective governments.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is in Israel for his third visit to the region since the start of the conflict, judged that the truce “is producing results”. “It’s important and we hope it continues,” he said.
The head of American diplomacy also met the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, in Ramallah, in the West Bank. “We have allowed a significant increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza but it is still not enough,” he said.
He also assured that the Israeli government was committed to preserving the civilian population as much as possible if fighting resumed in the Gaza Strip.
As the number of women and children held hostage in Gaza dwindles, an extension of the truce may require changing its terms to include men, including Israeli soldiers.
(Reporting Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo, Mohammed Salem and Roleen Tafakji in Gaza, Humeyra Pamuk in Tel Aviv, Ari Rabinovitch and Emily Rose in Jerusalem and the Reuters editorial staff, written by Peter Graff and Alexandra Hudson; French version Camille Raynaud, Bertrand Boucey and Tangi Salaün)
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