Global News Podcast - Gaza special: Three freed hostages back in Israel

Episode Date: January 19, 2025

Three freed hostages - Doron Steinbrecher, 31, UK-Israeli Emily Damari, 28, and Romi Gonen, 24 - have been returned to Israel. 90 Palestinian prisoners are also due to be released by Israel.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. What is she gaining from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service. The Con. Caitlin's baby. Available now. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles with a special edition of the podcast as the ceasefire between Israel and

Hamas comes into effect. We will hear from our correspondents in Tel Aviv where, as we record this podcast, three Israeli women just released by Hamas after 15 months in captivity are due to be taken to hospital for medical checks. Family members of those still held tell us about their reaction. All the hostage families, including my own, are completely on tenterhooks. I think there are emotions that we're feeling that I don't think have an English word for. We're in Ramallah in the West Bank where we get reaction to the imminent release of Palestinian

prisoners held by Israel and we hear what the ceasefire means for the people of Gaza as long-awaited aid trucks enter the street. There have been many false starts in the efforts to bring an end to the conflict in Gaza. But now the latest diplomatic efforts have come to fruition. After 15 months in captivity, three Israeli hostages have been released by Hamas in Gaza. The three women crossed the border into Israel and as we record this podcast, they're due to be taken by helicopter to a hospital in Tel Aviv. Their release is part of a deal between Hamas and the Israeli government,

which includes a six-week ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. A correspondent in Tel Aviv, Anna Foster, was in a square with hundreds of Israelis as they watched the handover of the hostages in Gaza to the International Red Cross. You might have heard actually the sound of a cheer going up here in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv. watch the handover of the hostages in Gaza to the International Red Cross. You might have heard actually the sound of a cheer going up here in Hostage Square in Tala B. What they are watching is Israeli TV, but rebroadcasting pictures from Gaza. It looks like those Red Cross vehicles are starting to move. Huge crowds that are pressing in

around them. Members of Hamas with their faces covered holding weapons that look like they are on the back of that vehicle. But what people here have been watching for and responding to, they are looking for any glimpse of those women being handed over. You can hear it again, listen. Where people are applauding. Now Reuters have said they have been told by a representative from the International Committee of the Red Cross that the handover has begun.

It looks like they are trying to close the doors. I mean, this is the real sort of key moment. In fact, it is worth saying this is a moment that people feared that they might not see, that might not happen when that ceasefire was delayed. It was supposed to happen at 8.30 this morning, local time, and it didn't actually come into force until 11.15 at the end. People were worried that this timetable would slip. But what you're seeing now is what looks very much like just a very chaotic handover

of those three Israeli hostages. Emily Demary, who's that 28-year-old British Israeli national who was taken from Kibbutz Kfar Aza. The crowd cheering around me again. Also, Romy Gonen, who was taken at the Nova Music Festival. She was 23 years old when she was abducted. She was believed to have been shot in the hand as well when she was taken by her mass from the Nova Music Festival, on the phone to her mum at the moment when she was abducted. And also, Doreen Steinbrecher, who was a veterinary nurse. She also lived

in Kaffa Azza. She was taken from her apartment on the 7th of October and people here in the square in Tel Aviv were really responding to those pictures. We can speak to Jonah Fisher again, our correspondent, who is outside Chiba Hospital. When the hostages get to where you are, it is sort of the end of that handover process really when they go to hospital. And I imagine, you know, you and many of the world's media are there waiting for that part of the handover as well.

Yeah, what we're expecting to happen next, Anna, because the footage from Gaza seems to show the three hostages are being transferred over to the Red Cross, is that they will be taken by the Red Cross to the IDF inside Gaza, the Israeli forces there. Then they will be taken across the border into Israel. It is probably going to be at a settlement called Reim where they will be reunited possibly with their family members. From what we know about the way that these three women were captured on October 7, 2023. It's likely that

at least two of them have injuries dating back to then. They may also have other problems associated with being kept in captivity in Gaza for 15 months. They may have been badly treated, kept in tunnels. Once they are at Reim, we are expecting them to be put on a helicopter and flown here to where I am now, which is a hospital on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. They'll land at a short distance over there, and then they will be brought probably along the road here. This is where they're going to go through.

This is not going to be a public event. The priority here is the privacy, understandably, of the hostages and their families as part of this process. Efforts are being made to make sure that this is essentially a private moment. They'll be transferred into the hospital here and one would imagine that they'll get medical treatment and obviously that will be the start of their lives in freedom having been released. Now that we've seen that the handover has happened in Gaza into Red Cross hands, one could imagine that in the next few hours, we might see those three female hostages,

Dora and Steinbrecher, Emily, Damari and Romy, going in, brought here and obviously started receiving some medical treatment. Jonah Fisher in Tel Aviv. Well, the impact of today's releases is not just on those women freed and their families, but on those with loved ones still in captivity. Adam Mahnitz's cousin, Zahid Adan, was taken hostage on the 7th of October after his oldest daughter, Mayan, was shot and killed through a room door.

Here's Zahid reacting to the news of the safe arrival of the three female hostages. All the hostage families, including my own, are completely on tenterhooks. They're feeling the full spectrum of human emotion. I think there are emotions that we're feeling that I don't think have an English word for. Huge amount. Our fates are really intertwined with one another as hostage families and so to see those scenes of Doron and Emily and Wormy being, you know, walking on their own two legs, their own two feet out of the car knowing that

they're at least alive and well enough to do that and to, you know, to be back on Israeli soil, to be in Israeli care, and to be reunited with their loved ones, their family, their mothers especially. I was with Mandy in Tendonning Street a few months ago, an incredible human being, just one of the most awful times for all parents to see, you know, to have to not know what's happening with their children. And so you can imagine what they must be going through right now. And of course, we as families are feeling that joy too by proxy.

We are completely attached. And for all the hostage families, I think it's fair to say we feel as one big family so when any of us are returned we share in their joy and we celebrate. Adam Manit. Meanwhile Palestinian families are preparing for the return of dozens of prisoners who are being held in Israeli jails. It's another key plank of the deal negotiated between Israel and Hamas. Our correspondent John Donnison is in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. You can see off a prison right behind me there and the road snaking out past the watchtowers and the barbed wire.

And in the next few hours, possibly as late as this evening, we are going to see 95 Palestinian prisoners freed, 70 women, 10 teenagers and 15 men, all jailed for relatively low level offences. They'll then drive the short distance up the valley there to Batounia and the town square there will be where they're allowed to meet their loved ones. But you know the difficulties we've had today give you a sense of how difficult it's going to be over the next six weeks because we're expecting 33 Israeli hostages to be released in total in exchange for some 1900 Palestinian prisoners some of them jailed for much more serious offenses but yes here in the West Bank, a moment of some hope. John Donison in Ramallah. Well, one of the Palestinian prisoners being released is 68-year-old

Nael Barghouti. He's been held the longest by Israel for more than a decade. He was arrested for the second time on the charge of acting against Israel in 2014. While Nael is set to be released in the first phase of the ceasefire, he's also one of the people who won't be allowed to return to the West Bank. Here's his wife, Iman. Happy to feel like we are going to see him again, even if it's after 10 years and a half, you know. It's a long, long time. Like, you want to see somebody new for some time. It's even as a person, as a human thing, it's not easy. I was preparing myself, preparing the house, to welcome Nael in his house.

But after we started knowing that they are going to let him go out from Palestine, with 48 Palestinians from Deir Shalid Deir, it was a shock for me and for other wives because we did not expect this. I am afraid now if they deport Nael outside of Palestine that it will be difficult for me to go to be with him because I'm not sure that the Israeli side will let me go. And this has happened before. They prevent families to see each other. They deport many of the Palestinians. Until now many families they didn't see their sons, their husbands. So that's why I'm really worried. Iman Barghouti. Well, alongside the prisoner hostage releases, a ceasefire has also come into effect.

Many Palestinians who've been displaced from their homes in Gaza are now attempting to return. Dr Mohamed Abu Mughassib from the humanitarian charity Medcin Sans Frontier in Gaza has been describing what's in store for those Palestinians after 15 months of Israeli bombardment. If you are in Gaza you see the massive destruction. You see a population of 1.900,000 living in the south, evacuated the north area. You have hospitals which are partially destructed. Everything in terms of life here is totally destroyed. The situation was catastrophic. The only thing, the good thing, that there will not be any kind of military actions. People will at least have no fear, but I mean the pain is coming

now. I mean people will try to go back to their demolished homes and the shock will be there when they see how things are, especially in Gaza City and the north. All the health structure was totally destroyed. All the hospitals partially destroyed or totally destroyed clinics everywhere. So, I mean, we saw some pathological diseases that has been not before 7th of October. The malnutrition, the hepatitis A, I mean, a lot of infectious disease. I mean, patients of cancer before 7th of October, they were depending, going to the Israeli hospitals to be treated. Since 400 days they are here, a lot of them have died because there is no chemotherapy, there is no treatment.

So there is a huge need to rebuild and to develop now in the coming days, the health structure. Dr. Mohamed Abu Mougaissib from the humanitarian charity Medecins Sans Frontieres in Gaza. On his last day in office, President Biden in the United States has welcomed the ceasefire deal coming into force and the start of that hostage release process in return for the freeing of Palestinian prisoners. Former women will be released in seven days, three additional hostages every seven days

thereafter, including the least two American citizens in this first phase. By the 16th day of the deal, talks will begin in the second phase. This phase includes the release of Israeli soldiers and a permanent end of the war without Hamas in power or able to threaten Israel. Today alone, we anticipate several hundred trucks will enter the Gaza Strip, probably as I'm speaking. And after so much pain, destruction, loss of life, today the guns in Gaza have gone silent. President Biden. Well, the relief that this ceasefire has brought to people in Israel and Gaza is palpable. Many have taken to the streets to celebrate as hostages are freed from Hamas, while Palestinians eagerly await the release of 90 prisoners

from Israeli jails. But it's only day one of a phased process with many potential pitfalls. Our chief international correspondent, Lise Doucette, explained the importance of this moment. In Israel, they say the country believes that they changed forever after October the 7th, everywhere you go. And today in that square, the banners of the hostages, they line all the streets and squares in Tel Aviv, in many other cities. They line the hallways in Israel's, the international airport in Ben Gurion, just outside Tel Aviv.

They feel that these are their sisters and brothers and family members, that there's been this solidarity and solidarity among the families too. And people will be watching around the world, because this is such as one of those exquisite human moments of rare happiness, which will give rise to cautious hope that this can be the beginning of something where all of the hostages will go home. Those who are alive and the remains of those who did not survive so that their family knows at least what happened.

And then the hundreds of Palestinian prisoners who will go home. Many of them have been languishing in prison under administrative detention, not yet being charged, never knowing when they would be free. This is a time of intense emotion on both sides in this deeply, deeply political deal, in a war to the likes of which the region has never seen, and so many hope that there will be an end to that war, but it's fraught with risk. But this moment is one, a very, very human moment. Lis Doucet. And that's all from this special edition

of the Global News Podcast. For now, there will be a new edition of the program later. If you want to comment on this podcast, all the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on x at globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Chris Murphy,

the producers were Sophie Smith and Emma Joseph. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Nick Miles and until next time, goodbye. There's a divide in American politics between those who think democracy is in peril and those who think it's already been subverted, hollowed out from the inside. As President Trump returns to the White House, we go through the looking glass into a world where nothing is as it seems. The coming storm from BBC Radio 4. Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts.