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Hamas released three other Israeli hostages on Saturday during a ceremony marked by some of the same provocative theaters used by Palestinian activists in previous outings.
It was the sixth round of a tense series of hostage exchanges for prison which are part of a 42-day ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which entered into force last month . Overall, Hamas agreed to release 33 of the nearly 100 people captured on October 7, 2023. In exchange, Israel agreed to release more than 1,000 Palestinians detained in its prisons and partially withdraw from Gaza.
Here is a more in -depth examination of the three civil hostages, including an Israeli American, who was released on Saturday:
Sagui Dekel-Chen
Mr. Dekel-Chen, an Israeli American who had played for the national basketball team of Israel, was 35 years old when he was taken from Nir Oz, a Kibbutz in southern Israel near the border From Gaza where activists removed more than 70 people in Hamas-Landi attack on October 7, 2023.
He is the father of three children; His youngest child was born during his captivity. Mr. Dekel-Chen worked as a national coordinator for the British branch of the Jewish national fund and with his wife, buses converted for new uses, as for mobile classrooms.
Mr. Dekel-Chen’s family was active in the defense of a cease-fire agreement. His father, Jonathan Dekel-Chen, professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, wrote an opinion article for the New York Times criticizing the Israeli government for not having brought the hostages home.
In August, the professor told Times than him and other members of Nir Oz Kibbutz would not participate in an official government ceremony which was then planned to commemorate the attack on October 7. He said they were “dismayed by the idea that this government created a ceremony that distracts their guilt”.
Mr. Dekel-Chen’s mother Neomit Dekel-Chen, and some neighbors were also captured during the October 7 attack. She escaped an electric trolley which was heading for Gaza when an Israeli military helicopter shot militants, according to An account she gave to Israeli information media.
Mr. Horn was 45 years old when he was kidnapped from Nir Oz with one of his two brothers, Eitan, who was visiting the weekend. Iair Horn worked in construction and his brother worked as a teacher.
IAIR HORN was born in Israel and high in Argentina. He returned to Israel in adulthood with his parents and siblings, according to their mother, Ruth Strom. They are part of a big Argentine community On the Kibbutz, including other families while waiting for the return of the hostages.
Eitan Horn is not planned for the release in the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, and Ms. Strom said she was impatient that the IAIR must leave his brother behind.
Their father, Itzik Horn, said in December 2023, after the Israeli army mistakenly killed three hostages which had fled their kidnappers to Gaza, that Israel must conclude an agreement even if it means released prisoners designated as terrorists.
“The most important thing is not to defeat Hamas,” he said in an interview. “The only victory here is to bring all the hostages back.”
Mr. Troufanov, a double Russian Israeli citizen who was 27 years old when he was captured, visited his family in Nir Oz on October 7. His father was killed, and his mother, grandmother and girlfriend were taken hostage but released during a fiery fuel cease in November 2023.
Mr. Troufanov, who lived with his girlfriend in a suburb of Tel Aviv and worked in a Company belonging to Amazonwas seen in a video published by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad – the second most powerful militant group in Gaza after Hamas – in November of last year. He seemed tired, with a beard and bags not connected before his eyes, and spoke of a lack of food and water.
In October, Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, told Russia today that he had spoken to the Islamic jihad of Mr. Troufanov, and that Hamas would give him priority in any exchange of hostages and Palestinian prisoners “in honor” by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
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