Hamas released three Israeli captives on Saturday in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian inmates freed by Israel, completing the latest swap despite fears the Gaza truce deal was near collapse.
Israeli-American Sagui Dekel-Chen, Israeli-Russian Sasha Trupanov and Israeli-Argentine Yair Horn were made to make statements into a microphone before being handed over to the Red Cross and taken back home to Israeli territory after being held for more than 16 months.
Not long after, a busload of Palestinian detainees departed Israel’s Ofer Prison and were greeted by a cheering crowd in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, an AFP journalist said.
More buses took inmates from an Israeli prison in the Negev desert to the Gaza Strip, according to another AFP journalist.
The Israeli Prison Service confirmed it had freed 369 prisoners from the Ofer and Kziot prisons near Ramallah and Gaza respectively, after transferring them “from several prisons across the country”.
