Four female Israeli soldiers held hostage by Hamas have returned to Israel while 200 Palestinian prisoners were released on Saturday as part of a ceasefire agreement in Gaza that halted more than 15 months of war.
The truce went into effect last Sunday with the release of three Israeli female civilian hostages and 90 Palestinian detainees.
The four soldiers — Liri Albag, 19, Daniella Gilboa, 20, Karina Ariev, 20, and Naama Levy, 20 — were seized from a military outpost on the Israel-Gaza border during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that triggered the conflict. Their freedom became a central demand of the hostage release movement that coalesced around the families of those still held captive in Gaza.