<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;">Hamas on Friday released 24 hostages it held captive in Gaza for weeks, and Israel freed 39 Palestinians from prison in the first stage of a swap under a four-day cease-fire that offered a small glimmer of relief to both sides.</span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Israel — wrenched by the abduction of nearly 240 people in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war — cheered as 13 Israeli women and children emerged free from Gaza. Most were in their 70s or 80s, and the youngest was a 2-year-old. Also released were 10 people from Thailand and one from the Philippines.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In Gaza, the truce’s start Friday morning brought the first quiet for 2.3 million Palestinians reeling and desperate from relentless Israeli bombardment that has killed thousands, driven three-quarters of the population from their homes and leveled residential areas. Rocket fire from Gaza militants into Israel went silent as well.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Increased supplies of food, water, medicine and fuel promised under the deal began to roll into Gaza, where U.N. officials had warned that Israel’s seal on the territory threatened to push it to starvation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But relief has been tempered — among Israelis by the fact that not all hostages will be freed and among Palestinians by the briefness of the pause. The short truce leaves Gaza mired in humanitarian crisis and under the threat that fighting could soon resume.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Israel says the cease-fire could be extended if more hostages are released, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said it had received a new list of hostages to be released by Hamas on Saturday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But Israel has vowed to resume its massive offensive once the truce ends. That has clouded hopes that the deal could eventually help wind down the conflict, which has fueled a surge of violence in the occupied West Bank and stirred fears of a wider conflagration across the Middle East.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Under the deal, Hamas is to release at least 50 hostages, and Israel 150 Palestinian prisoners over the four days. Both sides were starting with women and children. Israel said the four-day truce can be extended an extra day for every additional 10 hostages freed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After nightfall Friday, a line of ambulances emerged from Gaza through the Rafah Crossing into Egypt carrying the freed hostages, as seen live on Egypt’s state-run Al-Qahera TV. The freed Israelis included nine women and four children 9 and under.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The released hostages were taken to three Israeli hospitals for observation. The Schneider Children’s Medical Center said it was treating eight Israelis — four children and four women — and that all appeared to be in good physical condition. The center said they were also receiving psychological treatment, adding that “these are sensitive moments” for the families.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At a plaza dubbed “Hostages Square” in Tel Aviv, a crowd of Israelis celebrated at the news.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Yael Adar spotted her mother, 85-year-old Yaffa Adar, in a TV newscast of the release and was cheered to see her walking. “That was a huge concern, what would happen to her health during these almost two months,” she told Israel’s Channel 12.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">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.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">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 hostage.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">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.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hours later, 24 Palestinian women and 15 teenagers held in Israeli prisons in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem were freed. In the West Bank town of Beituna, hundreds of Palestinians poured out of their homes to celebrate, honking horns and setting off fireworks that lite up the nights sky.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">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.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“As a Palestinian, my heart is broken for my brothers in Gaza, so I can’t really celebrate,” said Abdulqader Khatib, a U.N. worker whose 17-year-old son, Iyas, was freed. “But I am a father. And deep inside, I am very happy.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Iyas had been taken last year into “administrative detention,” 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.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, an advocacy group, Israel is currently holding 7,200 Palestinians, including about 2,000 arrested since the start of the war.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Friday’s halt in fighting brought Gaza’s uprooted population a moment to catch their breath after weeks of fleeing for shelter, searching for food and fearing for family.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After the truce began Friday morning, four trucks of fuel and four trucks of cooking gas entered from Egypt, as well as 200 trucks of relief supplies, Israel said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Israel has barred all imports into Gaza throughout the war, except for a trickle of supplies from Egypt.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Its ban on fuel, which it said could be diverted to Hamas, caused a territory-wide blackout. Hospitals, water systems, bakeries and shelters have struggled to keep generators running.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">During the truce, Israel agreed to allow the delivery of 130,000 liters (34,340 gallons) of fuel per day — still only a small portion of Gaza’s estimated daily needs of more than 1 million liters.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are crowded into the southern portion of the territory, with more than 1 million living in U.N. schools-turned-shelters. The calm brought a chance for displaced residents of the south to visit homes and retrieve some belongings.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But the hundreds of thousands who evacuated from northern Gaza to the south were warned not to return in leaflets dropped by Israel. Israeli troops hold much of the north, including Gaza City.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Still, hundreds of Palestinians tried walking north Friday. Two were shot and killed by Israeli troops and another 11 were wounded.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sofian Abu Amer decided to risk checking his home in Gaza City.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“We don’t have enough clothes, food and drinks,” he said. “The situation is disastrous. It’s better for a person to die.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Israel’s northern border with Lebanon was also quiet on Friday, a day after the militant Hezbollah group, an ally of Hamas, carried out the highest number of attacks in one day since fighting there began Oct. 8.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hezbollah is not a party to the cease-fire agreement but was widely expected to halt its attacks.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The war erupted when several thousand Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel, killing at least 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking scores of hostages, including babies, women and older adults, as well as soldiers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The hope is that “momentum” from the deal will lead to an “end to this violence,” said Majed al-Ansari, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of Qatar, which served as a mediator along with the United States and Egypt.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But hours before it came into effect, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told troops that their respite would be short and that the war would resume with intensity for at least two more months.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Netanyahu has also vowed to continue the war to destroy Hamas’ military capabilities, end its 16-year rule in Gaza and return all the hostages.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Israeli offensive has killed more than 13,300 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza government. Women and minors have consistently made up around two-thirds of the dead, though the latest number was not broken down. The figure does not include updated numbers from hospitals in the north, where communications have broken down.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The ministry says some 6,000 people have been reported missing, feared buried under rubble. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and militants in its death tolls.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Israel says it has killed thousands of Hamas fighters, without presenting evidence for its count. AP/UNB</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>