The first two hostages to be released, Tal Shoham, 40, and Avera Mengistu, 38, were turned over to Red Cross officials in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Shoham was kidnapped from kibbutz Be’eri, along with his two children, wife, and mother-in-law, all of whom were released in November 2023. Mengistu, an Israeli from Ashkelon, crossed into Gaza in 2014. Later on, thousands, including Hamas fighters, gathered at a separate location, in Nuseirat, central Gaza, where three of the hostages – Eliya Cohen, 27, Omer Shem Tov, 22, and Omer Wenkert, 23 – were handed over in another heavily choreographed ceremony. A number of children appeared on the stage wearing shirts with photographs of Hamas leaders who had been killed. The three men were kidnapped at the Nova music festival near the border with Gaza. They appeared thin but in better condition than some of the previous freed hostages, whose condition sparked alarm in Israel. Shem Tov appeared to engage with some of the Hamas fighters on stage and blew a kiss toward the crowd.
Hamas freed all six hostages in the latest exchange Saturday, even as heightened tension between the adversaries clouded the future of the fragile ceasefire deal. The six included three Israeli men seized from the Nova music festival and another abducted while visiting his family in southern Israel when militants stormed across the border in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that triggered Israel’s nearly 16-month campaign in the Gaza Strip. Two of the hostages had been held by Hamas for around a decade since they each entered Gaza on their own.
Hamas on Saturday released all six remaining living Israeli hostages promised under the first stage of the ongoing cease-fire deal — as one heartbroken family finally received the remains of a mother murdered in terrorist captivity. The two newly freed hostages — Tal Shoham and Avera Mengistu — were received by members of the International Committee to the Red Cross at the handover site in Rafah in southern Gaza. Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov and Omer Wenkert were released at Nuseirat in the Gaza Strip later on Saturday. All three have since arrived at an IDF facility near the Israel-Gaza border and are receiving medical treatment. As in past instances, Hamas released the hostages in elaborately staged propaganda ceremonies. Photos show a thin but smiling Shem Tov standing with his armed captors shortly before the release. At one point, the video showed him kissing the forehead of a Hamas terrorist.
