Egypt Daily News – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to eliminate Hamas in the Gaza Strip and recover all Israeli hostages still being held there, in a video message broadcast by his office on Saturday evening.
“We will eliminate Hamas and get our hostages back.This is what we will do,” Netanyahu said in the message, which was shown after a new exchange involving three Israeli hostages and more than 180 Palestinian detainees.
More than 100 Palestinian detainees released on Saturday from Israeli prisons arrived in the Gaza Strip, according to AFP correspondents, in the fifth exchange of detainees and hostages as part of the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel.
The released detainees were transported in two buses accompanied by a team from the International Committee of the Red Cross, through the Israeli Kerem Shalom crossing, to the “European Gaza” hospital for medical examinations, where they were greeted by hundreds of Palestinians.
Hamas condemned what it called the “policy of slow killing” of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons after the release of 183 detainees, seven of whom were hospitalized, as part of the exchange.
Hamas confirmed in a statement that “the deterioration of the health condition of our freed prisoners in today’s exchange deal and the previous ones, once again reveals the tragic condition of our prisoners inside the occupation prisons,” adding that “the transfer of seven prisoners immediately after their release to hospitals, indicates the methodology of the occupation prison administration in its attacks and abuse on our prisoners, which comes within the policy of the extremist occupation government that pursues slow killing against prisoners inside the prisons.”
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said that seven of the Palestinian detainees released today as part of the fifth exchange between Israel and Hamas as part of the Gaza ceasefire agreement were hospitalized due to their health condition.
The Palestinian Red Crescent confirmed the hospitalization of seven detainees.
All the prisoners who were released today are in need of medical care, treatment and examinations as a result of the brutality they have been subjected to over the past months,” club president Abdullah al-Zaghari told AFP, stressing that ‘there are seven who were transferred to the hospital, including Jamal al-Tawil, who needs urgent medical attention,’ adding that ”there are seven who were transferred to the hospital, including Jamal al-Tawil.”
Jamal al-Tawil, a Hamas political leader in the occupied West Bank, was arrested at the end of 2023.
“Al-Tawil was transferred to the hospital due to his difficult health condition as a result of what he was exposed to and is in need of medical attention, and it is expected that others who were released will be transferred to hospitals,” Al-Zaghari said.
The Israeli military said it launched an airstrike today on a Hamas weapons depot in southern Syria.
“A short time ago, the Israeli Air Force carried out a strike based on intelligence information that confirmed the presence of a weapons storage depot belonging to the Hamas terrorist organization in the Deir Ali area in southern Syria,” the army said in a statement.
On Saturday, Hamas released three Israeli hostages in exchange for 183 Palestinian detainees from Israeli prisons, in the fifth exchange since a ceasefire between the two sides went into effect after a devastating war that began 15 months ago.
The International Red Cross received the three prisoners in preparation for their transfer to Israel, while the Israeli Prison Service announced the start of the process of releasing the Palestinians from Ofer prison.
Israel and the Hostage Families Forum confirmed that the three hostages are Or Levy (34 years old), Eli Sharabi (52 years old), and German-Israeli Ohad Ben-Ami (56 years old).
