Jerusalem:

Palestine-based Hamas released four female Israeli soldiers on Saturday as part of the second hostage release of the Gaza ceasefire deal. Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag were serving as observers at the Nahal Oz army base on the border with Gaza on 7 October, 202, when Hamas attacked Israel and captured them.

Hours before being released, the four women–dressed in army green– were paraded before a crowd of thousands in Gaza City. They were then transferred to the Red Cross vans, which brought them back home to Israel. In exchange, Israel later released 200 Palestinian prisoners as part of the ceasefire agreement.

Liri (19), Naama (20), Karina (20), and Daniella (20)  were among the first to be abducted by Hamas-led forces, who killed around 1,200 people and dragged another 250 into the enclave. The first few hours of the assault on the army base were filmed by Hamas forces, which showed the four women in their pyjamas, covered in blood, while they were handcuffed against a wall.

The video of their capture was rereleased by their families in May in an attempt to increase pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a hostage release deal with Hamas. It was re-released by Israel on Sunday in a post on X, hours after the four women reunited with their families.

“Hamas wants you to forget the images of  Liri, Daniella, Karina, and Naama on October 7-dragged from their beds in bloodstained pajamas, their hands bound by Hamas terrorists. We will not let this happen,” read the caption of the post.

Dozens of armed Hamas terrorists are currently gathering in Gaza for the release of 4 female hostages.

Soon we will witness Hamas’ carefully orchestrated and cruel propaganda.

Hamas wants you to forget the images of Liri, Daniella, Karina, and Naama on October 7—dragged from… pic.twitter.com/FzqxzqgNyj

— Israel ישראל (@Israel) January 25, 2025

In the video, one of the women can be heard telling her captor that she has friends in Palestine. When the Hamas fighter asked them to remain quit, the other woman told him that she wanted to call her friend in Gaza.

As per media reports, during their 477 days in Hamas captivity, Daniella, Liri, Naama and Karina were kept in civilian apartments and tunnels, in poor sanitary conditions. They were also reportedly forced to cook and clean for their captors, sometimes even while receiving little food for themselves.

Three other female soldiers –Agam Berger, Noa Marciano and Ori Megidish– were also taken hostage with them. While Megidish was rescued alive by the Israeli military in late October 2023, Marciano was reportedly killed by her captors near al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Israel believes Berger is also presumably alive and still in captivity in Gaza. 

The family of 19-year-old Liri Albag, an Israeli soldier held captive by Hamas since October 7, 2023, said she looks “broken and shattered” in a recent video released by the militant group on Saturday. In the three-and-a-half-minute footage, Ms Albag, visibly distressed, speaks of being held for over 450 days.

“Today we received a sign of life from Liri; the video is hard to watch,” her mother, Shira Albag, said in a statement. “This is not the Liri we know. This is the shadow of Liri.”

שירה אלבג, אמה של לירי אלבג: ״עם ישראל היקר, קיבלנו היום אות חיים מלירי; סרטון שלנו קשה לראות. זאת לא לירי שאנחנו מכירים. רה״מ דיבר איתנו, נשיא המדינה, הרמטכ״ל, שר הביטחון ואמרנו להם שיעשו עסקה. זה הזמן. יש את לירי ועוד 99 חטופים שצריכים לחזור הביתה במהרה> pic.twitter.com/hjBHYKxXMP

— Raz Shechnik (@RazShechnik) January 4, 2025

“This is not the same daughter and sister that we know. She is in bad condition, and her difficult mental state is evident,” the family said in a longer statement cited by the Times of Israel. “The always-strong Liri looks broken and shattered.”

Liri Albag, a surveillance soldier stationed at the Nahal Oz military base near the Gaza border, was among 251 individuals abducted during Hamas’s assault on southern Israel. Of the seven surveillance soldiers taken, one was rescued, and another was found dead in captivity. Liri Albag and four others – Karina Ariev, Agam Berger, Naama Levy, and Daniella Gilboa – remain in Gaza.

“This is the time. There is Liri and 99 other hostages who need to return home soon,” Ms Albag’s mother said. “Every day in Hamas’s hell in Gaza poses an immediate risk of death to the living hostages and endangers the ability to recover the fallen for proper burial.”

The Albag family appealed directly to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, urging the government to prioritise the hostages’ release. “We saw our heroic Liri survive and beg for her life. She is several dozen kilometres from us, and for 456 days we have been unable to bring her home,” they said. “Make decisions regarding the hostages as if your children were there. Liri is alive and must come back alive! It depends only on you.”

The October 7 attack by Hamas, backed by allied groups, killed about 1,200 Israelis. Since then, Israel has relentlessly targeted schools, hospitals, neighbourhoods, and camps housing internally displaced people. The Benjamin Netanyahu-led government, with unwavering support from the United States, still continues its offensive in Gaza. Israeli airstrikes have killed over 45,000 Palestinians and left nearly the entire population of the densely packed territory displaced.

Hamas said on April 27 it was studying Israel’s latest counterproposal for a Gaza ceasefire, a day after media reports said a delegation from mediator Egypt was in Israel trying to jump-start stalled negotiations.

The armed wing of Hamas also released video footage of two men held hostage in Gaza, identified by Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum as Keith Siegel and Omri Miran.

Also read | The war on Gaza and America’s paradoxical role

The signs of fresh truce talks come after the United Nations warned that “famine thresholds in Gaza will be breached within the next six weeks” unless massive food assistance arrives.

Aid groups say Gaza’s already catastrophic humanitarian conditions would be worsened by Israel’s vow to attack Hamas fighters still in Rafah city in southernmost Gaza.

Rafah, on the border with Egypt, is crowded with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by nearly seven months of war between Israel and the Islamist movement.

“We live in constant terror and fear of repeated displacement and invasion,” Nidaa Safi, 30, who fled Israeli strikes in the north and came to Rafah with her husband and children, told AFP.

The area comes under regular bombardment. Hospital officials said strikes in Rafah and elsewhere killed more than a dozen people overnight.

Among the dead were an entire family, their relative Mohammed Yussef said.

“Nobody left: the father, the mother, a girl and two boys” were killed when their house was targeted, he said.

Daily deaths

Khalil al-Hayya, deputy head of Hamas’s political arm in Gaza, said it had “received the official Zionist occupation response to the movement’s position, which was delivered to the Egyptian and Qatari mediators on April 13”.

In a statement, Hayya said Hamas “will study this proposal” before responding.

The movement has previously insisted on a permanent ceasefire, which Israel rejects.

Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been unsuccessfully trying to seal a new Gaza truce deal ever since a one-week halt to the fighting in November saw 80 Israeli hostages exchanged for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

Al-Qahera News, which is linked to Egyptian intelligence services, reported “noticeable progress in bringing the views of the Egyptian and Israeli delegations closer”.

In early April, Hamas had said it was studying a proposal, after talks in Cairo, and Al-Qahera reported progress. Days later Israel and Hamas accused each other of undermining negotiations.

Dozens are dying in Gaza every day, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

The war began with Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack which resulted in the deaths of about 1,170 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Summit in Saudi

Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 34,388 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, the health ministry said Saturday.

Israel estimates that 129 hostages seized by militants on October 7 are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.

Israeli demonstrators have intensified protests for their government to reach a deal that would free the captives, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of prolonging the war.

The latest hostage video comes just three days after Hamas released another video showing hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin alive.

Both Mr. Siegel and Mr. Miran appeared to speak under duress in the video.

“It’s time to reach a deal that will get us out of here safe and healthy… Keep protesting, so that there will be a deal now,” Miran said in the footage that appeared to have been recorded earlier this week.

U.S. citizen Siegel (64) broke down as he talked of their captivity. “We are in danger here, there are bombs, it is stressful and scary,” he said.

In its report on Friday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said “the only way to halt famine” is by “massive and consistent food assistance that can be delivered freely and safely”.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said this month that Israel planned to “flood Gaza” with aid, but the OCHA report cited continued “access constraints”.

A special meeting of the World Economic Forum set to begin Sunday in Saudi Arabia will have a strong focus on the war, including the humanitarian situation, organisers said.

A Royal Navy support ship has sailed from Cyprus to house hundreds of US army personnel building a jetty for aid sent by sea, a British defence source said.

Israeli Army spokesman Major Nadav Shoshani told a press briefing the military hoped the pier would be ready by early May.

Cyprus said the aid-laden Jennifer — which had previously returned after an Israeli strike killed seven aid workers in Gaza — is now sailing back to the territory.

In Turkey, however, a “Freedom Flotilla” aimed at delivering aid was blocked after being denied use of two ships flying the Guinea-Bissau flag, with organisers blaming Israeli pressure on the West African nation.

Lebanon, West Bank deaths

The Gaza war has led to increased violence between Israel and Iran’s proxies and allies, in particular Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon killed three people on Saturday, including two members of Hezbollah.

Hezbollah said it fired “drones and guided missiles” at a base in northern Israel in response.

Israel’s military said its Iron Dome air defence system intercepted a “suspicious aerial target” and that fire was returned at the source of several anti-tank missiles launched from Lebanon.

Since October 7, more than 250 Hezbollah fighters and dozens of civilians have been killed in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally.

Israel says 11 soldiers and nine civilians have been killed on its side of the border.

Violence has also soared in the Israeli-occupied West Bank where Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinians near the city of Jenin on Saturday, the army and Palestinian media reported.