The first three hostages were released to the Red Cross after 15 months in Hamas captivity, as part of its cease fire and hostilities treaty between Israel and Hamas which took effect earlier on Sunday.
The three women – identified by the Hostages and Families of the Missing Forum as 24-year-old Romin Gonen, 31-year-old Doron Steinbrecher and 28-year-old Emily Damari – were released by Hamas activists to the Red Cross around 10:30 am EST, 5:30 pm local time. They were held since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.
Hostage and missing families forum
The Red Cross handed them over to the Israel Defense Forces in Israel to receive initial health checks at special reception centers near the border with Gaza, a senior IDF official said.
After these examinations, they were to be transferred by helicopter or ground vehicle to hospitals inside Israel, where areas were prepared to welcome them and address any medical needs they might have. .
They were expected to be reunited with their families once in the hospital, the senior IDF official said.
About 250 people were kidnapped during the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, which triggered 15 months of war. About 100 hostages remain in Gaza, after the rest have been released or their bodies recovered.
Hours before Sunday's cease-fire, which many hope is the first step towards ending the war, Israel announced that it had recovered the body of Oron Shaul, a soldier who went was killed in the 2014 Israel-Hamas war and remains held by the militants ever since.
Here's what we know about them:
Romi Gonen, 24
Hostage Family Forum via AP
Gonen was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. That morning, Gonen's mother, Merav, and her eldest daughter spent nearly five hours talking to Gonen while militants were passing through the grounds of the festival. Gonen told her family that roads full of abandoned cars made it possible to escape and that she would seek shelter in some bushes.
Then she said words that still appear in her mother's head every day. “Mom I was shot, the car was shot, everyone was shot. … I'm injured and bleeding. Mom, I think I'm going to die, ” she reported Romi sayingin a press conference a few weeks after the removal.
Over the past 15 months, Merav has been one of the most prominent voices advocating for the return of the hostages, appearing almost daily on Israeli news programs and traveling abroad. over missions.
“We're doing everything we can so the world doesn't forget,” Merav told The Associated Press the six-month anniversary of the Hamas attack. “Every day we wake up and take a big breath, a deep breath, and keep walking, keep doing the things that bring her back.”
Emily Damari, 28
Hostage Family Forum via AP
Damari is a British-Israeli citizen who was kidnapped from her apartment on Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a communal farming village that has been hit hard by the Hamas attack. She lived in a small apartment in a neighborhood for young adults. Terrorists broke through the border fence of the kibbutz and destroyed the community.
Kibbutz Kfar Aza said that Damari was often the “glue that held her close group of friends together” and she always organized gatherings of friends around the best barbecue corner in the entire kibbutz .
“All Emily's mum Mandy wants to do is tease Emily. But she won't believe it until she sees it,” said Emily Cohen, representing Damari's family. CBS News BBC Partner before it was released.
Doron Steinbrecher, 31
Hostage Family Forum via AP
Steinbrecher is a veterinary nurse who loves animals, and a neighbor of Damari's in Kibbutz Kfar Aza.
At 10:20 on October 7, 2023, Steinbrecher called her mother. “Mom, I'm scared. I'm hiding under the bed and I hear them trying to get into my apartment,” her brother, Dor, recalled, according to the Associated Press.
Steinbrecher was featured in a video released by Hamas on January 26, 2024, along with two other Israeli women.
How will the other guards be released
Gonen, Steinbrecher and Damari are the first three hostages to be released under the cease-fire and hostilities resolution agreement between Israel and Hamas, which will be carried out in stages.
The first phase of the ceasefire calls for Hamas to release 33 hostages over six weeks. They include women, children and guests over 50 years old, said a draft seen by CBS News.
On the first day of the agreement, three hostages were to be released by Hamas. On the seventh day, four hostages were to be released. After that, Hamas would release three hostages taken from Israel every seven days, starting with the living and then moving on to return the bodies of the dead.
More than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israel would also be released in the first phase of the deal. Israel was expected to release 90 prisoners in exchange for the freedom of the first three hostages.
“These are critical and emotional times for the families and for all of Israel,” the Missing Hosts and Families Forum said in a statement. return home, we are still under great responsibility for our loved ones who may be left behind. Now, more than ever, we need the public to stand with us until they return the last enemy. We leave no one behind.
