The Al-Qassam Brigades published a video clip, Saturday evening, showing 4 Israeli female soldiers released, expressing their gratitude in Arabic to the Palestinian factions for the good treatment they received during their captivity and for preserving their lives despite the violent Israeli bombardment.
The video, which was broadcast by Al-Qassam via its Telegram account, shows the female soldiers in a car while they were being transported to be handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross, as part of the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel with international and regional mediation.
While they were inside the car before the handover, the female soldiers expressed their gratitude to the Al-Qassam Brigades for the good treatment they received.
One of them said: “Peace be upon you, thank you to the Al-Qassam Brigades for the good treatment.”
Another added: “Thank you for the food, drink and clothes.”
A third female soldier thanked the faction fighters who were “protecting us and protecting us from the bombardment.”
While the fourth expressed her wish that this day would be “a happy day for everyone.”
At the end of the clip, the female soldiers were seen chanting loudly the date “January 25,” which was the day of their release, near the Gaza beach, where the video was filmed before they were handed over to the Red Cross.
On Saturday afternoon, Hamas released 4 Israeli female soldiers and handed them over to the Red Cross, which in turn handed them over to the Israeli side, as part of the second batch of the first phase of the exchange deal and ceasefire in Gaza.
In exchange for each Israeli female soldier, 50 Palestinian prisoners will be exchanged, including 30 serving life sentences and 20 serving long sentences, according to what a Hamas source told Anadolu Agency, Saturday.
In total, Israel currently holds more than 10,300 Palestinian prisoners in its prisons, and it is estimated that there are about 96 Israeli prisoners in Gaza.
The Gaza ceasefire agreement, which went into effect on January 19, included a deal to release Israeli prisoners in Gaza in exchange for a number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.
In the first phase of the agreement, which consists of three stages, each lasting 42 days, the terms stipulate the gradual release of 33 Israelis held in Gaza, whether alive or dead, in exchange for a number of Palestinian detainees estimated between 1,700 and 2,000.
Indeed, the first exchange, which took place on the first day of the agreement, saw the release of three female Israeli civilian prisoners in exchange for 90 male and female Palestinian child detainees, all from the occupied West Bank, including Jerusalem according to the Anadolu news agency.
With American support, Israel committed genocide in Gaza between October 7, 2023 and January 19, 2025, leaving more than 158,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 14,000 missing, and one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.