The Israeli authorities are making preparations to welcome house dozens of hostages held incommunicado by Hamas for over a 12 months in Gaza, with out realizing whether or not they may return starved, traumatized or lifeless.
Thirty-three hostages are alleged to be freed within the first section of the Gaza cease-fire settlement between Israel and Hamas, within the first such main launch since a weeklong cease-fire seven weeks into the struggle. Some households have caught glimpses of their family members in Hamas-directed hostage movies. However it’s removed from clear in what situation the captives will return.
At Israeli hospitals, well being officers have been making ready remoted areas the place the hostages can start recuperating in privateness. Israel’s Well being Ministry has drafted an in depth protocol for his or her psychological and bodily therapy. There are specific considerations that they could be severely malnourished.
“Those who had been freed again then had been already poorly nourished,” Hagar Mizrahi, a senior Israeli well being ministry official, stated of the hostages freed through the 2023 truce. “Think about their state of affairs now, after an extra 400 days. We’re extraordinarily frightened about this.”
After Hamas led the Oct. 7, 2023, assault on Israel, killing about 1,200 individuals and capturing about 250 others, about 105 Israeli and overseas hostages had been freed within the weeklong truce in November that 12 months. A couple of had been later launched in Israeli navy operations, and Israeli troopers recovered the our bodies of dozens of others.
However round 98 hostages remained in Gaza, dozens of whom are presumed lifeless by the Israeli authorities.
Of the ladies, older males and different hostages returning beneath the primary section of this cease-fire deal, many are believed to have been held within the militant group’s warren of tunnels in Gaza, situations prone to depart bodily and psychological scars.
Well being officers have been poring over each piece of intelligence — together with the hostage movies — in an effort to discern the hostages’ situation, Dr. Mizrahi stated. A committee of officers that features Dr. Mizrahi has decided that some had been killed.
Israeli officers say the logistics of the discharge might be broadly much like these through the earlier cease-fire, when 105 hostages had been launched in alternate for 240 Palestinians jailed in Israel.
In that alternate, Hamas fighters handed over hostages — principally ladies and kids — to the Worldwide Committee of the Pink Cross. The Pink Cross’s staff ferried the captives from Gaza in a marked ambulance to Egypt earlier than taking them to Israel.
On the border crossing, Israeli intelligence brokers verified their identities. Across the identical time, Israeli safety officers launched a specified group of Palestinian ladies and teenage prisoners.
This time, the Israeli authorities have established three reception factors to obtain the hostages alongside the Gaza border, in response to an Israeli navy official. These might be staffed by Israeli troopers, in addition to docs and psychologists, stated the official, who spoke on situation of anonymity in accordance with protocol.
From there, the hostages might be taken to the Israeli hospitals which were making ready to take care of them, the official stated.
The 105 hostages launched in November 2023 got here house after roughly 50 days in captivity in Gaza. They arrived in a rustic that had essentially modified; some realized solely then about mates and family members who had been killed within the Hamas-led assault.
At first, officers aimed to reintegrate returning hostages as rapidly as doable, in response to Dr. Mizrahi. Now, the well being authorities suggest that the hostages being launched stay within the hospital for at the very least 4 days, if not longer, she stated.
Within the meantime, the hostages’ relations — a few of whom themselves survived captivity — can solely wait.
“Final time, we noticed the Pink Cross transferring the hostages, and a few of them had been operating to the family members, hugging them,” stated Einat Yehene, a scientific psychologist working with the Hostage Households Discussion board, an advocacy group. “It’s not going to be simple and related this time, given the bodily and the emotional situations we count on.”
