Three women held hostage by Hamas in tunnels beneath Gaza during 15 months of devastating conflict, including the joint British national Emily Damari, have been dramatically released and reunited with their mothers in the first act of a ceasefire deal aimed at ending the conflict.
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Damari, 28, Romi Gonen, 24 and Doron Steinbrecher, 31, were handed over to the International Committee for the Red Cross in Gaza on Sunday afternoon, ending a protracted ordeal that began with their violent abduction by Hamas on 7 October 2023.
On Sunday evening the Israeli military said the three had been reunited with their mothers at a meeting point inside Israel, close to the kibbutz and nearby music festival where they had been abducted from.
In pictures released by the Damari family of Emily’s reunion with her mother, Mandy, Damari can be seen embracing her mother as she talks to her brother on the phone. In a second image she can be seen gesturing happily to a crying family member with a bandaged hand, with two fingers missing from the hand in which she was shot during her abduction.
Earlier, live television footage of the handover broadcast from the scene by Al Jazeera showed a white minivan arriving in a square in the Rimal district of Gaza City with the three women inside.
A few moments later the women exited the vehicles accompanied by Hamas fighters in green headbands and balaclavas and closely pressed by crowds who took pictures with cellphones and chanted support for Hamas.
The handover was confirmed by Israeli, Hamas and Red Cross officials to media not long after 5pm local time (1500 GMT), with the women described as “in good health” by the Red Cross to an Israeli official.
“The three women hostages were officially handed over to the Red Cross at al-Saraya Square in the al-Rimal neighbourhood in western Gaza City,” a senior Hamas official told the Agence France-Presse news agency. “This occurred after a member of the Red Cross team met with them and ensured their wellbeing.”
The handover to Israeli forces was confirmed in a joint statement just over half an hour later by the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet domestic security agency.
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“The three returns have now been transferred to the IDF and Shin Bet forces in the Gaza Strip,” the statement said.
“The three returnees are now accompanied by an elite unit of the IDF and the Shin Bet force on their way back to Israel, back to Israeli territory, where they will undergo an initial medical evaluation.
“The commanders of the IDF and its soldiers salute and hug the returnees on their way to Israel.”
The three hostages, two of whom were injured during their abduction, are the first of 33 hostages – in the so-called humanitarian category including women, children, the ill and elderly people – listed for release during the first part of a complex three-phase hostage deal.
Others from the 33 will be released in small groups on subsequent Sundays as the ceasefire progresses.
Earlier video footage showed a convoy of four white Red Cross vehicles travelling to the centre of Gaza City to collect the three hostages.
Later footage showed the parked SUVs at what appeared to be an agreed rendezvous point, where they were surrounded by crowds held back by armed members of Hamas’s al-Qassam brigades.
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From there, the released hostages were delivered first to the Israeli military and then to waiting helicopters to fly them to hospital in Israel.
The release took place as Israel said it was preparing to release 90 Palestinian prisoners to the West Bank later on Sunday as part of the ceasefire agreement.
Once the first three hostages are returned on Sunday, Israel is expected to release the first Palestinian detainees under the deal. According to Hamas, the 90 Palestinians to be freed on Sunday will include 69 women and 21 teenage boys.
There is no detailed plan in place to govern Gaza after the war, much less rebuild it. Any return of Hamas to control in Gaza will test the commitment to the truce of Israel, which has said it will resume the war unless the militant group that has run the territory since 2007 is fully dismantled.
