The releases came following a Friday agreement between Israel and Hamas
Nine children, four women and a Russian-Israeli were released Sunday by Gaza rulers Hamas, according to accounts given to AFP by their relatives, Israeli media and the Hostage Families Forum.
The releases bring to 63 the total number of freed hostages from around 240 taken to Gaza after the unprecedented October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.
The releases came following a Friday agreement between Israel and Hamas, which is supposed to last for four days and allow for 50 Israelis and 150 Palestinians to be freed.
Thirteen Israeli hostages were released on Friday and the same number on Saturday, and in exchange Israel freed 39 Palestinian prisoners on Friday and a further 39 the following day.
The Russian-Israeli freed on Sunday was not part of the truce deal, with Hamas saying it freed him “in response to the efforts of Russian President Vladimir Putin”.
The Palestinian Hamas group also freed three Thai nationals on Sunday. Fourteen Thais and one Filipino had already been released by Hamas outside the deal.
The Israeli hostages freed on Sunday are:
Elma Avraham
The 84-year-old artist was on the phone with a neighbour on October 7 when armed men burst into her home in Nahal Oz kibbutz at around 11 am.
“There’s a terrorist in my house!” she told the neighbour.
Her son Uri Rawitz, with whom she had also spoken earlier, said Elma had not managed to lock the door to the safe room in her house.
Uri later received a photo of his mother being taken away on a motorcycle by armed fighters with another hostage.
Avraham’s second son, who also lives in Nahal Oz, escaped the attack.
Aviva Siegel
The 62-year-old was taken from her home in the Kfar Aza kibbutz along with her American husband Keith, 64, who is still being held.
At the time of the early morning attack, the couple grabbed their phone and took refuge in the safe room of their home, still in their pyjamas, according to their son-in-law Yuval Baron.
He told The Guardian newspaper they had thought it was just another rocket attack, but soon afterwards Siegel and her husband were seen being taken away with other hostages by armed men.
Schoolteacher Aviva was born in South Africa but moved to Israel when she was eight.
The couple have four children and five grandchildren.
Hagar Brodetz and her three children
Avihai Brodetz said he was trying to defend Kfar Aza kibbutz when his wife Hagar, 40, and their three children were kidnapped.
Several days later he found out they had survived the attack but had been abducted along with Abigail, a neighbour’s child who had taken refuge in their home.
Ofri, the eldest child, marked her 10th birthday in captivity in Gaza. Her younger brothers Yuval and Oria are aged 8 and 4.
Abigail
After seeing her parents killed at Kfar Aza, Abigail, who holds US citizenship, took refuge with the Brodetz family, and was kidnapped with them.
Michael and Amalya, her brother and sister, escaped the attack by hiding in a closet.
Abigail had her 4th birthday in Gaza on Friday.
Chen Almog-Goldstein and her three children
A 48-year-old social worker, Chen Almog-Goldstein was kidnapped from Kfar Aza kibbutz with three of her four children: Agam, 17, Gal, 11, and nine-year-old Tal.
The children’s father Nadav Goldstein and Yam, the eldest daughter, were killed in the attack.
They are members of the family of Doron Almog, a former high-ranking army officer and current chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, a non-profit organisation that encourages Jews to immigrate to Israel.
Five members of the Almog family were killed in an October 2003 suicide attack on the Maxim restaurant in Haifa which was claimed by Hamas ally Islamic Jihad.
Sisters Ela and Dafna
Ela, 8, and her sister Dafna, 15, were abducted from their father Noam Elyakim’s home in Nahal Oz kibbutz.
The day after the attack, their mother Maayan Zin saw a photo on WhatsApp of Dafna “sitting in pyjamas on a mattress in Gaza with the comment ‘In prayer clothes it would be better'”.
The bodies of the girls’ father, his partner Dikla and her son Tomer were found riddled with bullets in an empty lot.
Before he was shot, 17-year-old Tomer had been told by militants to go door-to-door and speak in Hebrew to convince his neighbours to leave their shelters.
Ela and Dafna also hold Hungarian nationality, according to media reports.
Ron Krivoy
The 25-year-old Russian-Israeli worked as a sound technician at the Tribe of Nova music festival attacked by the militants.
Initially he managed to escape and hide in a ditch, his sister Julia told Israeli media, but by noon an Arab-speaking person was answering his phone.
The youngest of three siblings, Krivoy was born in Israel, and, according to his father, had survived two car accidents and a fall into a sewer.
Hamas said he was being released outside the truce deal with Israel, and “in response to the efforts of Russian President Vladimir Putin and in appreciation of the Russian position in support of the Palestinian cause”.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
