Four female Israeli soldiers will be returned Saturday from Gaza, where Hamas terrorists have held them hostage since October 7, 2023.
Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Naama Levy, and Daniella Gilboa are set to be released as part of the cease-fire deal Israel struck with Hamas in early January. The women are alive, a Hamas spokesman reported. Hamas has agreed to release 33 of the remaining 91 hostages over the course of six weeks in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, most of whom are affiliated with terrorist organizations.
Hamas has demanded that Israel release 50 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for each female soldier. Already in Phase 1 of the deal, Hamas released three Israeli women in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners: 24-year-old Romi Gonen, 31-year-old Doron Steinbrecher, and 28-year-old Emily Damari.
Nineteen-year-old Albag was last seen in a Hamas propaganda video this month, as cease-fire negotiations were underway in Qatar. In the video, she asked the Israeli government to make a hostage deal. Albag’s father, Eli, said that the family was “sitting in the living room” when they suddenly saw “a picture of Liri and a sign of life” on the television.
“My two daughters were on the floor and my wife was howling, and I didn’t know whom to go to first to hold and try to console,” he said. “I heard Shira… call out ‘My Liri’ and sob. We gave her water and she fainted. I shouted to them that we need to be happy that she’s alive. Look at the girl — she’s alive.”
Ariel, 20, was pictured with a wounded and bloody face in the back of a Jeep in October, when Hamas took her hostage. She appeared in a hostage video in January of last year, along with Gilboa and Steinbrecher.
Hamas handcuffed Levy and dragged her into a Jeep on October 7, yet another image from the day’s carnage that went viral. Levy’s gray sweatpants were blood-stained at the crotch.
Gilboa said in the hostage video Hamas filmed last year that “I have been in Hamas captivity for 107 days, and I don’t know when or if I will ever return home.” Her mother called the video a “psychological game” waged by Hamas.
All four were taken hostage at the Nahal Oz army base’s IDF surveillance unit. A terrifying video of the girls lined up against a wall at the base, along with female soldier Agam Berger, went viral on October 7. The women were bloody and appeared wounded.
Berger will remain in Gaza for now.
Hamas is expected to soon release information about the state of the 26 hostages who over the next five weeks are supposed to be released. The Bibas family — mother Shiri, father Yarden, and their two young sons, Kfir and Ariel — are among those 26. Kfir was eight months old when Hamas kidnapped him from the Bibas home in kibbutz Nir Oz; his second birthday was this January. Ariel was four when he was kidnapped; he is now five years old.
“We are trying to hold onto hope and think in the most positive way. But from week to week, from release to release, when we don’t know if they are the next ones in line [to be released] or not it becomes harder and harder,” Shiri’s cousin, Yifat Zailer, told ABC.