But Yael’s 38 year old son, Tamir Adar, remained in captivity. Both were kidnapped on Oct 7 from Kibbutz Nir Oz. “Everyone needs to come back. It’s happiness locked up in grief.”
The hostages included multiple generations. Nine year old Ohad Munder-Zichri was freed along with his mother, Keren Munder, and grandmother, Ruti Munder. The fourth grader was abducted during a holiday visit to his grandparents at the kibbutz where about 80 people, nearly a quarter of all residents of the small community, are believed to have been taken from.
The plight of the hostages has raised anger among some families that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not doing enough to bring them home.
Hours later, 24 Palestinian women and 15 teenage boys held in Israeli prisons in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem were freed. In the West Bank town of Beitunia, hundreds of Palestinians poured out of their homes to celebrate, honking horns and setting off fireworks that lit up the night sky.
The teenagers had been jailed for minor offenses like throwing stones. The women included several convicted of trying to stab Israeli soldiers, and others who had been arrested at checkpoints in the West Bank.
“As a Palestinian, my heart is broken for my brothers in Gaza, so I can’t really celebrate,” said Abdulqader Khatib, a UN worker whose 17 year old son, Iyas, was freed. “But I am a father. And deep inside, I am very happy.”
Iyas had been taken into “administrative detention” in 2022 without charges or trial and based on secret evidence. Israel often holds detainees for months without charges. Most of those who are tried are put before military courts that almost never acquit defendants and often don’t follow due process, human rights groups say.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, an advocacy group, Israel is currently holding 7200 Palestinians, including about 2000 arrested since the start of the war.
