Palestinian group, Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, has announced the start of military the operation Al-Aqsa Flood against Israel. Thousands of rockets have been fired from the blockaded enclave towards the occupied territories as far away as Tel Aviv, killing over 1,200 Israelis, including both military and settlers. More than 14,500 Palestinians have been so far killed in an exchange of fire between the two sides.
People crowd around a bus carrying released Palestinian prisoners near Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, on Sunday.
The Red Cross has received a handover of hostages being released from captivity in Gaza on Sunday, according the Israel Defense Forces.
The group of 17 includes both Israelis and foreign nationals, the IDF added.
This group is part of the planned third exchange of hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners, which is coming during a four-day truce between Israel and Hamas.
The Biden administration has “reason to believe” one of the Americans held hostage will be released Sunday, a top US official said Sunday.
“We’re dealing with Hamas. We are in a ‘don’t trust, but verify’ situation here. And so we have reason to believe that there will be an American release today,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”
“Today should be a good day, a joyful day, but until we actually see it happen, we are going to remain really at the edge of our seat,” he added.
Two American women and one child, 4-year-old Abigail Edan, are currently unaccounted-for and are expected to be part of the group of 50 women and children hostages released as part a four-day truce, now in its third day.
No Americans were released as part of the deal on Friday or Saturday. Ten Americans are unaccounted for in total.
The US, Sullivan stated, has “growing optimism” that Edan will be returned, though he declined to provide a timeline.
“We are now hopeful that Abigail will be released and reunited with her family. She turned four just two days ago. She has been through hell. She had her parents killed right in front of her and has been held hostage for the last several weeks,” Sullivan added.
“But I am going to say that we have growing optimism about Abigail and we will now watch and see what happens.”
Sullivan said that it is difficult to know the true status of the Americans being held.
“We cannot say for certain whether all three of them are still alive. But we do know this: we have reason to believe that today, one American will be released,” he added.
Israeli air strikes on Sunday made Damascus airport inoperable just hours after flights had resumed following a similar attack last month, a war monitor announced, as state media also reported the attack.
“Israeli warplanes on Sunday afternoon carried out a new raid targeting Damascus international airport… putting it out of service again,” said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
It added the raid targeted the runways, and reported the sound of an explosion from the direction of a military airport elsewhere in the capital.
A military source said in a statement carried by state news agency SANA that at around 4:50pm (13:50 GMT), “the Zionist enemy carried out an air attack with missiles from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan”.
Eight Palestinians have been killed by Israeli gunfire in the occupied West Bank over the past 24 hours, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said in a statement on Sunday.
The ministry announced five were killed in Jenin during an Israeli military incursion into the city and its refugee camp.
One person was shot and killed in Al-Bireh, near Ramallah.
Two more were killed in Yatma, south of Nablus, early Sunday morning.
This brings the total number of Palestinians killed by Israeli troops and Israeli settlers in the West Bank and east Jerusalem since October 7 to 240, with more than 2,959 injured.
The increased aid entering Gaza these days remains a “drop in the ocean” of the humanitarian needs on the ground, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) announced Sunday.
“We need 200 aid trucks a day continuously for two months at least to meet the needs,” said UNRWA media adviser Adnan Abu Hasna.
“We need even more fuel so we can operate the services and sectors we support, like water desalination, sewage, hospitals, bakeries and UNRWA services and communications. The aid going in at the moment is just a drop in the ocean of humanitarian needs.”
More desperately needed aid has been allowed into Gaza as part of the truce agreement between Israel and Hamas that came into effect on Friday.
“The (humanitarian) situation in northern Gaza is dangerous, there is no drinking water and no food, so the aid we are sending is important. Today we are also sending convoys towards Gaza City and northern Gaza. The humanitarian situation is dangerous in both southern and northern Gaza,” the UNRWA representative added.
Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, announced on Telegram on Sunday that four of their military commanders in Gaza have been killed.
The commanders include Ahmad al-Ghandour, a member of the military council and the commander of the north brigade.
A Palestinian Ministry of Health official said on Sunday that only three hospitals are operating in northern Gaza, following seven weeks of intense Israeli bombardment.
The official added that the hospitals have very limited capabilities and are not able to cater to all patients due to the lack of tools, fuel and electricity.
The Ministry of Health reiterated calls for more medicine and medical supplies to be brought into Gaza, as people and hospitals struggle to get hold of basic medicines such as pain killers.
Photos and footage shared online shows hundreds of cars queuing up to buy fuel, as a small amount was allowed into the besieged enclave during the four day temporary truce.
Israel cut off all fuel, food, water, aid and electricity for Gaza since 9 October, leaving hospitals, shops and petrol stations without resources.
All of the foreign nationals released by Hamas from captivity in Gaza are in stable condition, according to medical professionals.
Of the 41 hostages released from Gaza on Friday and Saturday, 15 are foreign nationals: 14 are from Thailand and one from the Philippines.
Dr. Osnat Levtzion Korach, director of the Shamir Medical Center in Israel, said Sunday that all were in stable condition:
“They are in stable condition, and they are improving,” she continued, adding: “They’re very happy to be here and we’re very happy that we can give them the best care that they need.”
Israeli Foreign Ministry announced in a statement on Saturday that the foreign nationals will remain in the Shamir-Assaf HaRofeh medical center in Beer Yaakov, southeast of Tel Aviv, until medical examinations are complete.
Israel promised to provide “dedicated care” to all of them, the ministry said.
Israel has received a list of hostages due to be released Sunday in accordance with an agreement signed with Hamas, according to Israel’s Prime Minister’s office.
“Security officials are checking the list” and the information has been conveyed to the hostages’ families, the office said in a statement.
The list marks what is set to be the third day of releases since a truce for a temporary pause in fighting came into effect on Friday. Under the agreement, a total of 50 hostages are expected to be freed over the four days, while Palestinian prisoners are also due to be released in waves.
Twenty four hostages — including 13 Israeli civilians and 11 foreign nationals — were freed on Friday, followed by 17 more — 13 Israelis and four Thai nationals — on Saturday.
The UN office for humanitarian affairs (UNOCHA) has said that Israeli forces are reportedly arresting people moving from north and central Gaza towards the south through a checkpoint that Israel is describing as a “corridor”.
According to UNOCHA, people are being made to pass through an “unstaffed checkpoint” where they are asked to:
In one case in the last week, the UN announced a child was left to pass through the checkpoint alone after his father was arrested at the checkpoint.
The UN is also raising concerns about the need for more child protection services to assist unaccompanied children.
The Palestine Red Crescent (PRSC) has reported that the Israeli army is besieging the Jenin Governmental Hospital and the Ibn Sina Hospital in the occupied West Bank.
In a post on X, the PRCS also said the Israeli army is obstructing and preventing their emergency medical service teams from reaching the injured and “continuously inspecting” their ambulance vehicles.
Sixty-one trucks delivered food, water, and emergency medical supplies to northern Gaza on Saturday, according to the United Nations, the largest number of trucks to reach the north since the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.
As day two of the Hamas-Israel truce unfolded, 11 ambulances, three coaches, and a flatbed went to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City to help with evacuations, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement Saturday.
Two hundred trucks went to the Nitzana border crossing with Egypt, while 187 entered Gaza by 7 p.m. local time (12p.m. ET), according to the UN.
129,000 liters of fuel also crossed into Gaza, it added.
In an earlier statement, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said it received 187 trucks from the Egyptian Red Crescent on Saturday and dispatched the largest aid convoy to Gaza City and the northern parts of the strip since October 7.
It announced the convoy was “loaded with food and non-food items, water, primary health care medicines, and emergency medical supplies, from aid that entered through Rafah (Saturday) as well as from PRCS warehouses in the south”, adding that it successfully distributed the aid.
The PRCS ntoed that it has received 1,946 aid trucks in Gaza since October 21.
Israa Jaabis, a 37-year-old Palestinian woman held in an Israeli prison since 2015, has been freed and reunited with her family in their East Jerusalem home.
Jaabis was arrested in October 2015 with burns over half of her body after she and her family say a faulty cylinder of cooking gas burst into flames in front of a checkpoint in East Jerusalem.
Israeli authorities charged her with attempting to detonate a bomb with an intent to harm Israeli soldiers and was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
While imprisoned, Jaabis has lived with pain and struggled to receive adequate medical care, according to her lawyer, Lea Tselmel. An appeal against her sentence so that she could be released for treatment was refused by Israeli authorities.
“God willing, we will see her in the next few hours,” Israa’s son, Motasem, told Middle East Eye’s correspondent Latifeh Abdellatif at the Jaabis family home in Jerusalem.
“I will see my mother free after eight years. I pray for her freedom and all Palestinian prisoners. Ever since my mother was arrested, she has been denied medical treatment. When I first see her I will hug her and kiss her. And I will place a flower crown on her head.”
“We’re impatiently waiting for my sister to be freed,” Rola Jaabis, Israa’s sister, told MEE.
“Every time we saw her during prison visits we realised how much of an exceptional person she is. Ever since she was a young girl, she was special. She is a very selfless person,” she added.
“I can’t describe our feelings as a family, especially my parents. I can’t find the words. God only knows how much my parents have suffered.”
Shorouq Dwayyat, who was jailed in 2015 and had been serving the longest sentence among Palestinian female prisoners in Israeli jails, has been released.
Dwayyat was 18 when she was arrested and held in the Damon prison in Haifa, accused of stabbing an Israeli settler with a knife. Her family denies these accusations.
“Shorouq is delicate and cannot harm an animal,” her father, Salah Dwayyat, told Al Jazeera at the time.
Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, says since October 7, the Israeli army has become “absolutely vicious”.
“They’ve always been horrible, but they’ve become much more aggressive than anytime before,” Barghouti said, commenting on the latest string of Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
“It looks like … every Israeli soldier, every Israeli illegal settler, and every Israeli policeman thinks that they have a green light to kill and shoot, and at least harass Palestinians,” Barghouti told Al Jazeera.
“We’ve been receiving reports about very serious injuries and very serious attacks by the settlers on Palestinian communities,” he added.
When asked about the delay in the release of captives and Palestinian prisoners, Barghouti stated, “Israelis always play these games. Even when you conclude an agreement with them, they try to play games to violate it and, and change it in the way they want.”
The Palestinian Red Crescent announced one of its ambulances in the occupied West Bank was “targeted” near Ofer Prison.
The attack “resulted in the rear window shattering, and our team is safe”, the PCRS wrote in a post on X.
Dozens of Palestinians gathered outside the vicinity of Ofer awaiting the imminent release of the second round of Palestinian prisoners.
Doha is hoping to extend the truce between Israel and Hamas beyond the agreed upon four days, Qatari Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari told CNN Saturday.
“What we are hoping for is that the momentum that has carried from the releases of these two days and from this agreement of four days will allow us to extend the truce beyond these four days and therefore get into more serious discussions about the rest of the hostages,” Al-Ansari said.
Al-Ansari added he continues to work with senior officials in Qatar to address concerns from either side of the conflict regarding the implementation of the hostage deal.
“Within this kind of mediation, you’re always going to find both sides saying that the other side did not abide by the agreement,” Al-Ansari continued.
Al-Ansari added that he could not confirm if any Americans would be released on the third day of the truce.
“The lists are delivered on a daily basis. We are now expecting the list for the third day. Sadly, we can’t know who is going to be on that list beforehand,” he said.
The ministry spokesperson also said Qatar is working with partners in Egypt, the United States, and both parties of the conflict to ensure the agreed amount of aid trucks are allowed into Gaza.
“There are a lot of moving parts on the ground when it comes to humanitarian aid there which we need to work through,” he added.
Al-Ansari responded to the head of the Palestinian Commission for Detainees and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs who accused Israel of not abiding by the agreement to release prisoners in order of length of time served.
“We are now hopeful with the third day of this pause we will be able to hash out all of the details that made this day so difficult,” he stated.
The Israeli military says it is still detaining the director of northern Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya.
“We are still talking to him, yes,” Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht stated Saturday, in response to a question about Abu Salmiya’s detention.
Hecht described the doctor’s continued detention as a “good idea”, and Al-Shifa Hospital as a “bed of terrorism.”
Hecht added Israeli officials would “see what (they) learn from talking to” Abu Salmiya, and will make a decision regarding his release in “due course.”
Earlier Saturday, the World Health Organization called for the legal and human rights of Abu Salmiya and three other detained health workers to be respected.
The Indonesian Hospital, one of northern Gaza’s largest healthcare facilities, was so severely damaged in Israeli attacks that it may never open again.
On Saturday, Munir al-Bursh, director-general of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, told Al Jazeera, “We are in shock and horrified at the scenes left by Israeli forces at the Indonesian Hospital.”
Israeli tanks and snipers had laid siege to the hospital in Beit Lahia for days, before targeting its main generator and raiding it in the early hours of Friday, shortly before a four-day truce between Israel and Hamas came into effect.
The ministry announced on Friday that the hospital was undergoing “heavy bombardment” by the Israeli army and that there was fear for the lives of 200 injured people and medical staff. It added that intense Israeli fire killed a wounded woman and injured at least three others.
Now in ruins, the hospital is overwhelmed with large numbers of wounded people amid severe shortages in medical supplies. “Corridors have become wards and surgeons operate on the floor,” said Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid, who gained access to the facility.
“Outside the hospital building, the stench of death forces people to cover their nose, as charred and decomposing bodies, children among them, pile up in corners. No burials have taken place for days because Israeli snipers targeted anyone who ventured out to dig a grave,” he added.
Hundreds of displaced people had previously sought asylum at the hospital, which is also close to the Jabalia refugee camp.
With the facility out of service for weeks and the damage severe, it remains unclear whether it will ever reopen.
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani has confirmed reports that Tehran mediated the release of Thai hostages by the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.
Kanaani said Iran began its efforts to secure the release of the Thai nationals one week after the Zionist regime waged a war on Gaza and following contacts by the Thai officials and a meeting between the Thai foreign minister and Iran’s top diplomat in Doha.
He added that Iran gave a list of the Thai nationals to Hamas so the resistance movement would release them on humanitarian grounds.
Speaking to reporters after being released on Saturday night, Shorouq Dwayyat said that Israel warned the newly released Palestinian prisoners that they should not celebrate otherwise they could be re-arrested.
“The occupation told prisoners not to show any celebrations and threatened to arrest us again,” Dwayyat told reporters.
Dwayyat added that the release of her and others has led to a mix of “great joy” as well as pain, alluding to the deaths of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza as a result of Israeli bombardment.
“We pray for the martyrs of Gaza and hope that the war will stop,” she continued.
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