The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas released all the 20 remaining living Israeli hostages held in Gaza on Monday. Israel also received the bodies of four hostages out of the 28 dead, which are to be handed over in an undetermined time. Meanwhile, Israel released about 2000 Palestinian prisoners as part of the ceasefire agreement.
The Israeli hostages, all men who seemed in fine condition, have arrived back in Israel where they reunited with their families and underwent medical checks. Hours before their release, Hamas allowed some of the hostages to telephone their families, and the day started with the movement issuing a list of the names of the 20 living hostages to be all set free a couple of hours later.
The hostages were taken to a military base outside Gaza, where the Red Cross was overseeing the return process away from the glare of the international media.
Since the start of the war on Gaza on 7 October 2023, the official objective stated by Israel has been the release of the hostages captured by Palestinian fighters.
Though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that the goal of the war is the return of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas, his opponents have accused him of launching the war, prolonging it, and sabotaging negotiating efforts in order to save his premiership and avoid being tried for the war crimes that he has been indicted for.
There has been a broad consensus in Israel on the return of the hostages through a deal with Hamas regardless of Netanyahu’s own political interests. As the agreed goal of almost everyone in Israel, all efforts to stop the war focused on the release of hostages in exchange for a ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners held by the Israeli occupation.
Two previous ceasefire agreements also brokered by Egypt and Qatar resulted in most of the hostages being returned, whether they were alive or whether the agreements concerned the bodies of dead hostages.
Media reports and statements from the Israel Occupation Forces (IOF) over the last two years allow the story of the hostages to be reconstructed.
On 7 October 2023, during what was known as the “Al-Aqsa Flood” Operation, Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups abducted 251 people from Israel to the Gaza Strip. Almost half of them were foreign nationals or had multiple citizenships. Of all the hostages presumed alive at the time, 53 were civilians and 11 were military personnel, according to the AFP News Agency.
According to Israeli reports, 75 hostages were killed on 7 October 2023 or in captivity.
At the start of the war on Gaza, Hamas offered to release all the hostages in exchange for Israel releasing all the Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons. But the offer was ignored by Netanyahu’s government. In October 2023, Israel held 5,200 Palestinians, including 170 children, in its prisons.
On 22 November 2023, Israel and Hamas agreed to the release of 150 Palestinian prisoners and a four-day ceasefire in exchange for Hamas releasing approximately 50 of the hostages.
By 30 November 2023, the last day of the first ceasefire, 105 civilian hostages had been released, including 81 people from Israel, 23 Thai nationals, and one Filipino national.
On 12 February 2024, two Argentinian-Israeli hostages were rescued in a military operation. Hamas also released five hostages outside the framework of any ceasefire agreement, and eight were said to have been rescued by the Israeli army.
On 15 January 2025, the second ceasefire deal earlier this year, it was announced that a hostage return agreement had been reached between Hamas and Israel, under which Hamas would release 33 out of 98 hostages in the first phase, including infants, children, women, and elderly men, as well as younger men with injuries or health issues.
In exchange, Israel would release more than 1,000 Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons.
There has also been the repatriation of dead hostages to Israel during previous arrangements brokered by the mediators. The bodies of 58 hostages were repatriated to Israel, with three of the hostages killed by friendly fire after escaping captivity and being mistaken for enemy fighters by Israeli troops, according to Israeli army statements.
The bodies of 47 other hostages were repatriated through military operations, and eight were returned in the prisoner-exchange deal earlier this year.
There were 48 hostages remaining in captivity in the Gaza Strip by the time the Sharm El-Sheikh deal was reached earlier this week. Based on Israeli army intelligence, at least 28 of the remaining hostages are dead, but only four bodies have been released this time around, and Hamas has still to hand over the remains of the remaining deceased hostages later in the process.
This most recent exchange is different from the previous ones, with no Palestinian fighter parades or exposure of the hostages. Though Hamas and other Palestinian groups will lose their main bargaining chip by releasing the Israeli hostages, it was the price that needed to be paid to stop the Israeli genocide against the innocent population of the Gaza Strip.
All the parties agreed to the peace deal as the initiative came from US President Donald Trump.
Palestinian political analyst Mustafa Barghouti commented on the Sharm El-Sheikh deal by saying that it was “Trump’s pressure that led to the hostages’ release and not Netanyahu’s war of mass destruction.”
In a TV interview, he noted that the Israeli Prime Minister is no longer the “arrogant imperialist who is going to change the Middle East,” but is now back “to his real size.” Later, he wrote on X that “the courageous Palestinians in Gaza return to Gaza City after they were displaced from it by the genocidal bombardment, confirming the failure of Netanyahu’s plan for the complete ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip.”
The hostages were the main driving force behind the popular protests in Israel against Netanyahu and the extremist members of his government. That internal pressure, coupled with huge demonstrations and protests around the world, gave the US administration a golden opportunity to press Netanyahu’s government to stop the war on Gaza.
As many analysts noted, Israel had started to suffer from international isolation, with many governments around the world taking action against it because of the daily massacres in Gaza that left tens of thousands of people, including women and children, dead and many more injured. The Israeli siege of Gaza and the forced displacement of the Palestinian population resulted in more world anger.
Neither Hamas nor Netanyahu has declared victory in the war, but the Israeli families of the hostages and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are relieved. Discounting the leaders, both peoples feel that they have benefitted from the Sharm El-Sheikh agreement. Finally, the release of hostages has probably achieved a win-win deal.
The prospect of a lasting peace in Gaza and the region depends on guarantees by the main sponsor of the deal, the United States. Trump has also not given up on his dream of developing a “big and beautiful” property project in Gaza. The local and regional parties concerned might see in this another guarantee that this part of Palestine will return to pseudo-normality soon.
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