Israel and Hamas exchanged a new group of hostages and prisoners on Thursday in a handover that devolved into chaos as the armed militants struggled to control a chanting, jostling crowd of Palestinians trying to catch a glimpse of Israelis held captive during 15 months of war.
Hamas released a total of eight Israeli and Thai hostages in the Gaza Strip, including the tightly choreographed handover of an Israeli soldier, Agam Berger, 20, in the northern town of Jabaliya.
But the tumult surrounding the release of two other Israeli hostages — Arbel Yehud, 29, and Gadi Moses, 80, in the city of Khan Younis — infuriated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. It led his office to announce he had suspended the release of more than 100 Palestinian prisoners as called for under the truce brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States.
The episode briefly cast doubt on whether the prisoner release would happen at all.
Mr. Netanyahu blasted the “shocking scenes” of crowds yelling and jostling to get nearer to a fearful-looking Ms. Yehud and a grim-looking Mr. Moses. “This is additional proof of the inconceivable brutality of the Hamas terrorist organization,” the Israel prime minister said.
He called on the international mediators to secure guarantees from Hamas for “the safe exit of our hostages in the next rounds.” The Israeli government later relented, releasing the imprisoned Palestinians, saying that mediators had promised safe passage for hostages in future exchanges.
In a statement, Hamas said that the turnout of the crowds for the hostage handovers showed that Palestinians were determined to remain on their land. To Israelis, the chaos illustrated Hamas’s desire to humiliate and torment the hostages even as they were being freed.
In previous handovers, the militants have driven hostages into jubilant, sometimes jeering crowds before transferring them to Red Cross officials, who then handed them to Israeli officials.
In addition to three Israeli hostages, Hamas on Thursday freed five Thai agricultural workers who were among those abducted when the militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. They were Pongsak Thanna, Sathian Suwannakham, Watchara Sriaoun, Bannawat Seathao and Surasak Lamnao. The fate of one remaining Thai hostage, Nattapong Pinta, remained unclear.
The exchanges came during the first phase of a provisional cease-fire lasting 42 days, and Israel and Hamas still have to negotiate the next one.
Before the hostages were freed in Khan Younis on Thursday, large numbers of Palestinians gathered near the home of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza who was killed by Israel in October. A small white van carrying the captives and surrounded by armed gunmen slowly pushed its way through the yelling crowds.
Photos and video footage show Ms. Yehud, one of the last living female hostages to be held in Gaza, walking cautiously through the throngs while surrounded by rifle-wielding militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad as they made their way toward a Red Cross convoy. The Red Cross handed Ms. Yehud over to Israeli soldiers.
The third freed Israeli hostage, Mr. Moses, was also forced to wend his way through a tight crowd of spectators.
Yves Daccord, a former director general of the Red Cross, said the handovers in Khan Younis were “risky,” “unacceptable” and “absolutely psychological torture.”
“Releasing hostages in this way creates an enormous trauma on top of everything that has already happened,” he said in an interview. Ideally, he said, hostages should be released away from crowds and cameras.
After her release, Ms. Yehud was taken to Sheba Hospital in the city of Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv. She was met with crowds in Israel, too, but they were welcoming. “Our life’s mission to bring Arbel back to us has succeeded,” her family said in a statement.
Ms. Yehud was 28 when she was taken hostage along with her boyfriend, Ariel Cunio, from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel. Mr. Cunio is believed to still be a captive in Gaza. Ms. Yehud’s brother, Dolev Yehud, a medic, was identified last year as having been killed during the Hamas-led attack.
In a statement posted by the Hostage Families Forum, an umbrella organization, Ms. Yehud’s family urged Israeli officials to pursue the cease-fire agreement until all hostages were released. “Everyone must be brought home immediately so that we can heal as a society,” it said.
Ms. Berger, the soldier returned home from northern Gaza, was in “good” condition, according to Dr. Eytan Wirtheim, the chief executive of Beilinson Hospital, where she was taken.
She had been 19 and serving as a lookout at the Nahal Oz army base near the border with Gaza when the Hamas-led militants stormed the facility, killing more than 50 soldiers and abducting her and six other soldiers. Four of them were released in an exchange on Saturday.
Those four soldiers have been “improving from day to day” in the hospital, Dr. Wirtheim said in a televised statement. He said they had decided to stay in the hospital to keep Ms. Berger company during her first days of freedom.
Mr. Moses, a farming expert, was 79 when he was abducted in Kibbutz Nir Oz after trying to reason with the marauding militants.
His partner, Efrat Katz, had hidden inside a safe room in their home with her daughter and two visiting grandchildren, until they, too, were taken. Their kidnapping was captured on a video that showed them squashed together in the back of a pickup.
Ms. Katz was killed when an Israeli helicopter responding to the attack fired on the vehicle. Her daughter and grandchildren were released in November 2023.
The freed Thai men underwent initial medical examinations on Thursday and were found to be in “good” condition, a spokesman for Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said in a statement.
Vilas Thanna, the father of Mr. Pongsak, who worked on a fruit farm, could barely get the words out as he digested the news of his son’s freedom “When we are happy, we cry,” he said. “When we are sad, we also cry. But these are happy tears.”
Economic hardship has spurred thousands of Thais, particularly from the Isaan region of northeastern Thailand, to take agricultural jobs in Israel. Thai farmhands working in Israel suffered a heavy toll in the 2023 Hamas-led attacks. At least 39 were killed and at least 31 taken hostage, according to the Thai Foreign Ministry.
Twenty-three of them were released in November 2023. Two others died in captivity, the Foreign Ministry said last May.
Hamas had pledged to free at least 33 hostages in exchange for more than 1,500 Palestinian prisoners during the cease-fire’s first phase. On Thursday, Israel released 110 Palestinian prisoners, including 32 serving life sentences for deadly attacks against Israelis.
Before the releases, Palestinians stood outside a government recreation center in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday, restlessly checking their phones for updates on the prisoners.
Samar Faisal stood in the crisp winter air, shivering as much from excitement as the cold. She was in disbelief, she said. After more than 20 years in an Israeli prison, her brother was being released.
“I’m anxious and praying for the moment I finally see him,” Ms. Faisal said, as volunteers in fluorescent vests moved through the crowd.
For some waiting outside the recreation center, anticipation was tempered by sorrow.
Alaa Zubeidi was dressed in black in memory of her eldest son, Mohamed, who she said had been killed by an Israeli drone strike in September in their hometown, Jenin. Now, she was awaiting the release of her husband, Zakariya Zubeidi, who over the past two decades has been a militant, a theater director and an escaped prisoner. Israeli forces recaptured him in 2019.
Finally, around 7 p.m., a chain of buses arrived, carrying dozens of former Palestinian prisoners. Sixty-seven others arrived in Ramallah on Thursday, including 27 children, officials said. An additional 14 Palestinians arrived in Jerusalem and nine in Gaza, while 20 were sent to Egypt.
In Beitunia in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as a Red Cross buses carrying freed Palestinian prisoners arrived Palestinians hurled stones at Israeli forces, who fired stun grenades in response, footage live-streamed on Arabic television networks showed. It was unclear if there were any casualties.
The exchanges were the third swap in the first phase in the 42-day truce that halted the fighting between Hamas and Israel. On Saturday, Hamas is expected to release three more male hostages in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners.
In all, some 250 people were abducted from Israel during the 2023 attack and about 1,200 killed, the Israelis said. Israel responded by unleashing airstrikes across Gaza. The devastation displaced millions of Palestinians and led to the death of more than 47,000, according to Gazan health officials, whose figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
On Thursday, months after Israel announced it had killed the leader of Hamas’s military wing, Muhammad Deif, in an airstrike, a Hamas official confirmed the death in a video statement.
Reporting was contributed by Isabel Kershner, Avishag Shaar-Yashuv, Liam Stack and Fatima AbdulKarim.
