Hostage releases begin in Gaza Strip

Militants in the Gaza Strip released eight hostages on Thursday, handing them over to the Red Cross amid chaotic crowds as part of a swap that is set to see 110 Palestinians released from Israeli prisons later in the day.

Agam Berger, a 20-year-old soldier, was handed over first at a site in the heavily destroyed urban refugee camp of Jabaliya in northern Gaza, followed hours later by two more Israelis and five Thai farm workers who were handed over amid a chaotic crowd in the city of Khan Younis.

It's the third such exchange since ceasefire took hold in the Gaza Strip earlier this month.

The tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is aimed at ending the war in Gaza and securing the release of dozens of hostages held by the militant group, as well as hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned or detained by Israel.

Under the ceasefire, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have jubilantly returned to northern Gaza over the past three days. However, their homecoming has been bittersweet as nearly everyone has friends or relatives who died, and many northern neighborhoods have been transformed into an apocalyptic landscape of devastation by more than 15 months of war.

Israeli officials have filed an angry complaint to international mediators over chaotic scenes surrounding the release of hostages, as militants led Israeli hostage Arbel Yehoud through a chaotic crowd in Gaza ahead of her release.

Yehoud was at the center of the dispute about the sequence of releases that briefly rocked the ceasefire over the weekend. Israel says she was supposed to have been freed Saturday and delayed the opening of crossings to northern Gaza when she was not.

Thailand’s ambassador to Israel said she was “holding her breath” along with the entire country of Israel for the release of five Thai agricultural workers who were kidnapped on Oct. 7.

“We have nothing to do with this conflict, they just happened to be there, and they are working tirelessly on the farms and kibbutzes,” said Ambassador Pannabha Chandraramya as she watched footage from Gaza at the Israeli hospital where the Thai workers will be brought upon their return to Israel.