Hamas releases first hostages | Israel-Palestine conflict

Footage released on Friday by Hamas' armed wing, al-Qassam Brigade, shows two American hostages being freed and handed over to the Red Cross.

The US citizens were identified as Chicago-area residents Judith Tai Raanan and her teenage daughter Natalie Shoshana Raanan, who Israel said were being reunited with family on an Israeli military base.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the mother and daughter were abducted by Iranian-backed Islamist militants of Hamas from Kibbutz Nahal Oz, where they were staying during the surprise assault on southern Israel from Gaza on 7 October.

Judith Raanan, 59, and her daughter Natalie, 17, had been visiting the kibbutz about a mile from the Gaza border as part of a trip to Israel that began in September to celebrate the Jewish holidays and the 85th birthday of Judith's mother, US news media outlets reported, citing relatives as their sources.

The pair were handed over to Israeli forces at the border of the Gaza Strip and were "on their way to a meeting point at a military base in the centre of the country, where their family members are waiting for them," Netanyahu said in a statement.

US President Joe Biden thanked Qatar and Israel for their partnership in securing the release of the two women.

The women were among about 200 hostages that Hamas said it took during the deadly rampage its forces carried out from the Gaza Strip on communities and military bases in southern Israel, part of the bloodiest attack on the country since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

It was not immediately clear why the Raanans were chosen as the first hostages from 7 October incursion to be released, except that a spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, said that they were freed "for humanitarian reasons" in response to Qatari mediation.

Read more: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/20/american-mother-and-daughter-first-hostages-released-hamas/

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