Yarden Bibas, Ofer Kalderon and Keith Siegel were freed on Saturday after 484 days in Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian terrorists handed over Bibas and Kalderon to the Red Cross in Khan Yunis, in the Strip’s south, while Siegel was released in Gaza City.
“The government of Israel is committed to returning all of the hostages and the missing,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement issued by his office.
The statement concluded with a quote from the Bible: “I will save you from the hands of the wicked and deliver you from the grasp of the cruel” (Jeremiah 15:21).
The Hostage and Missing Families Forum issued a statement saying: “Their release today brings a ray of light in the darkness, offering hope and demonstrating the triumph of the human spirit. Yet their return also reminds us that 79 hostages remain in Gaza, still waiting to be saved. We will not rest until every phase of this deal is completed and every hostage is returned—the living to reunite with their loved ones, and the deceased for proper burial with dignity.”
In exchange, Jerusalem on Saturday was set to free 183 Palestinian terrorists—18 serving life sentence, 54 serving lengthy terms and 111 arrested since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.
Bibas’s wife, Shiri, 33, and their two sons, Ariel, 5, and Kfir, 2, are on the list of the 33 hostages to be released in the first phase of the ceasefire agreement. Hamas, however, has claimed that Shiri and the children have been killed.
Kalderon, 54, a dual Israeli-French citizen, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, 2023, along with his son Erez, 12, and daughter, Sahar, 16. The children were among the 105 captives freed in November 2023 as part of a ceasefire-for-terrorists agreement.
Siegel, 65, a dual Israeli-American citizen, was taken from his home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza during the Oct. 7 massacre. His wife, Aviva, was among those who returned as part of the November 2023 swap with Hamas.
On Thursday, three Israelis—IDF soldier Agam Berger, 20, along with civilians Arbel Yehud, 29, and Gadi Mozes, 80—and five Thais were redeemed from terrorist captivity in Gaza as part of Hamas’s truce with Jerusalem.
According to Israeli estimates, there are 79 hostages still in Hamas captivity in Gaza, including 76 abducted during the Oct. 7 attacks.
Of the 251 hostages taken on Oct. 7, 2023, 175 have been returned or rescued, and Hamas is believed to be holding 35 bodies, 34 of them taken during the cross-border invasion and that of IDF Lt. Hadar Goldin, which was taken by the Palestinian terrorist group in 2014.
