Israel receives third list of hostages to be released as fragile truce holds
Hospital director says an emotional night for released women and children
A professor who leads the team at the Edmund and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital has given an update on the condition of 12 of the 13 hostages released on Saturday.
Itai Pessach said it had been a long emotional night for the women and children released by Hamas who arrived at the facility at 03:30 local time (01:30 GMT).
He said none of them had needed emergency medical treatment.
Pessach added that they had also received psychological evaluations and medics were helping them prepare for their return to the community where the “whole nation would embrace them.”
Separately, Israeli media report the other Israeli hostage released on Saturday, Maya Regev, was taken to a different hospital upon her release and was to undergo emergency surgery for her injuries.
Palestinian teenager ‘dizzy with happiness’ to be released
The first thing 17-year-old Mohammad dar-Darwish did yesterday was get his hair cut.
After seven months in an Israeli jail, reclaiming his own identity was important to him.
The Palestinian teenager was freed by Israel, along with 38 other women and minors, in return for Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
Dar-Darwish was convicted by a military court of throwing Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers in April. He denies doing it.
As he was moved from prison on the day of his release, he says Israeli prison guards initially told him he was being taken to court.
He said he was “dizzy with happiness” when he arrived back in the West Bank, and found his father and brother in the crowd waiting to greet the prisoners.
After the 7 October attacks, Mohammad told me, guards took the blankets, cooking equipment, radios and televisions of Palestinian prisoners.
“They only gave us one portion of food between seven or eight people – we were always hungry. They couldn’t get to Gaza, so they punished us.”
Until his release, the only information about the war in Gaza came from new arrivals at the prison, he said.
He described people arriving in custody with fresh injuries: broken teeth, a badly bruised hand, and a large cut to the head that was left to heal untreated.
Israel’s prison service says all its prisoners are detained according to the provisions of the law, and that they have the right to make a complaint if they wish.
I ask Mohammad what he thinks about the Israeli hostages who were taken by Hamas, and used to buy his freedom.
Does he have sympathy for them?
“They were living in heaven, as guests of Hamas,” he replied, “while we were in prison, living each day in hell”.
- The BBC has reported that hostages held by Hamas are held in underground tunnels and suffered injuries during their violent abductions from their homes on 7 October.
