Hamas fighters released 24 hostages on Friday during the first day of the war's first truce, including Israeli women and children and Thai farm workers, after guns fell silent across the Gaza Strip for the first time in seven weeks.
GAZA/ISRAEL-GAZA BORDER, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Hamas fighters released 24 hostages on Friday during the first day of the war’s first truce, including Israeli women and children and Thai farm workers, after guns fell silent across the Gaza Strip for the first time in seven weeks.
Thai and Filipino farmworkers employed in southern Israel were among around 240 hostages dragged back to Gaza by gunmen when Hamas fighters launched a killing spree on Oct. 7.
In Khan Younis town in southern Gaza, streets filled with people venturing out of home and shelters into a landscape of buildings flattened into heaps of rubble.
In northern Gaza’s combat zone, viewed from across the fence in southern Israel, there was no sign of the warplanes that have thundered through the sky for weeks, explosions on the ground or the contrails of Hamas rocketfire.
But Abu Ubaida, spokesperson for Hamas’ armed wing, said in a video message that this was a “temporary truce” and called for an “escalation of the confrontation…on all resistance fronts”, including the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant spoke similarly: “This will be a short pause, at the conclusion of which the war (and) fighting will continue with great might and will generate pressure for the return of more hostages.”
The original article contains 982 words, the summary contains 212 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
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GAZA/ISRAEL-GAZA BORDER, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Hamas fighters released 24 hostages on Friday during the first day of the war’s first truce, including Israeli women and children and Thai farm workers, after guns fell silent across the Gaza Strip for the first time in seven weeks.
Thai and Filipino farmworkers employed in southern Israel were among around 240 hostages dragged back to Gaza by gunmen when Hamas fighters launched a killing spree on Oct. 7.
In Khan Younis town in southern Gaza, streets filled with people venturing out of home and shelters into a landscape of buildings flattened into heaps of rubble.
In northern Gaza’s combat zone, viewed from across the fence in southern Israel, there was no sign of the warplanes that have thundered through the sky for weeks, explosions on the ground or the contrails of Hamas rocketfire.
But Abu Ubaida, spokesperson for Hamas’ armed wing, said in a video message that this was a “temporary truce” and called for an “escalation of the confrontation…on all resistance fronts”, including the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant spoke similarly: “This will be a short pause, at the conclusion of which the war (and) fighting will continue with great might and will generate pressure for the return of more hostages.”
The original article contains 982 words, the summary contains 212 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!