Palestinian militants released three Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian inmates freed by Israel, completing the latest swap despite fears the Gaza truce deal was near collapse.
An AFP journalist saw masked Hamas gunmen parade the hostages onto a stage in front of a crowd in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Yunis, where they were made to make statements into a microphone before being handed over to the Red Cross and taken back to Israeli territory.
Clutching gift bags given by their captors and certificates to mark the end of their captivity, the three men, flanked by fighters, called for the completion of further hostage exchanges under the ceasefire deal.
Not long after, a busload of Palestinian prisoners departed Israel’s Ofer Prison and was greeted by a cheering crowd in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, an AFP journalist said.
More buses took inmates from an Israeli prison in the Negev desert to the Gaza Strip, according to another AFP journalist.
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