third day of truce and exchange of hostages held by Hamas – L’Express

⇒ A third exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners is expected this Sunday

⇒ 248 humanitarian aid trucks have arrived in Gaza since the truce took effect

⇒ IDF will attack the enclave again as soon as the truce ends

The UN announced on Saturday that 248 trucks of humanitarian aid have arrived in the Gaza Strip since the truce took effect on Friday. And of this number, 61 vehicles transported medical equipment, food and water to the north of the enclave.

Eleven ambulances, three coaches and a flatbed vehicle were delivered to al-Chifa hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip, “to help with evacuations”, the United Nations agency responsible for the emergency said in a statement. humanitarian coordination (OCHA). The establishment is, according to Israeli authorities, the main command center for Hamas operations in the Gaza Strip, something the Palestinian Islamist movement denies.

“The longer the truce lasts, the more humanitarian organizations will be able to send aid inside and outside the Gaza Strip,” added OCHA, thanking the Palestinian Red Crescent and the Egyptian Red Crescent. The UN agency also welcomed “the release of other hostages today” and renewed its call for the “immediate and unconditional release of all hostages”, hoping “that the release of other Palestinian detainees will provide relief to their families and loved ones.

Seventeen hostages held in the Gaza Strip for weeks were released Saturday evening after a long wait, on the second day of a truce between Hamas and Israel. The latter, in exchange, released 39 Palestinian prisoners, the Israeli Prison Authority announced overnight from Saturday to Sunday.

Among the hostages returned to Israel is Maya Regev, 21, kidnapped with her 18-year-old brother as they tried to flee the Tribe of Nova music festival attacked by Hamas fighters at dawn on October 7. A video posted on social media showed the young woman and her brother tied up in the back of a pick-up. Maya Regev is the first participant kidnapped during this festival to be released.

A 9-year-old Israeli-Irish girl, Emily, is also part of the group of 17 people released, announced Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar. As well as four German-Israelis, indicated the head of German diplomacy Annalena Baerbock. Four Thais, not affected by the agreement, were also released. They are in addition to the ten Thais and the Filipino released on Friday.

The 17 people released “underwent an initial medical assessment,” the Israeli army said in a statement. One of them was hospitalized, and the others had to be reunited with their families, she said. The truce agreement is supposed to last four days and allow the release of 50 Hamas hostages and 150 Palestinian prisoners. It was concluded under the auspices of Qatar and offers respite to the inhabitants of the besieged territory, after seven weeks of a war triggered by the bloody attack of Hamas on Israeli soil on October 7.

Eight Palestinians were killed by the Israeli army in 24 hours in the West Bank, including five in Jenin, a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups in the north of the territory occupied for 56 years by Israel, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported this Sunday, November 26. Five people were killed, according to the ministry, by Israeli army fire in Jenin, during an incursion of numerous armored vehicles into the city.

Medical sources told AFP that 15 people had been injured, while witnesses reported that an Israeli drone had carried out an airstrike on the city’s refugee camp. According to other witnesses, the Israeli army surrounded the Jenin public hospital as well as the Ibn Sina clinic. Soldiers were searching ambulances. They also reported violent fighting with automatic weapons.

The Israeli army, for its part, assured that it had carried out “counterterrorism activities in the Jenin refugee camp” during the night from Saturday to Sunday. She said she had arrested a man she said was the perpetrator of an attack that killed two Israelis in August. Furthermore, a 25-year-old doctor was killed on Saturday morning in front of his home in Qabatiya, near Jenin. Another Palestinian was killed in el-Bireh, near Ramallah, the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority. On Saturday evening, another man was killed in an Israeli army raid on a village south of Nablus, according to the ministry.

Israeli army chief of staff General Herzi Halevi has warned that the war is not over. “We will resume attacking Gaza as soon as the truce ends […] to dismantle Hamas and create enormous pressure to bring back as many hostages as possible, every last one of them, as quickly as possible,” he said.

According to the United Nations agency responsible for humanitarian coordination (Ocha), several thousand Gazans have tried since the start of the truce to return to the north of the Gaza Strip, despite warnings from the Israeli army, who had ordered at the start of the ground offensive all civilians to leave this sector, considered a combat zone.

The Israeli army opened fire and fired tear gas grenades on Friday against some of these displaced people, according to OCHA, which reported one dead and dozens injured. According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, seven of these displaced people were injured by the Israeli army on Saturday. The Islamist movement called for an end to Israeli army fire on the displaced.