News Digest — 1/30/25
Arbel Yehoud, Gadi Mozes, 5 Thais, freed amid mayhem in Khan Younis; Agam Berger released
Eight hostages abducted during the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel — Israelis Agam Berger, 20, Arbel Yehoud, 29, and Gadi Mozes, 80, and Thai nationals Thenna Pongsak, Sathian Suwannakham, Sriaoun Watchara, Seathao Bannawat, and Rumnao Surasak — were released by Palestinian terror groups on Thursday under an ongoing ceasefire deal with Hamas, returning to Israel after 482 days in captivity in Gaza.
Yehoud, 29, and Mozes, 80, along with the five Thai hostages, were released in an uncontrolled and dangerous handover in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis early Thursday afternoon, outside the destroyed home of slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, surrounded by hundreds of masked gunmen and large, seething crowds. The two Israeli civilians were forced to walk through the crowds, with gunmen at their side, from the vehicles that delivered them and, later, to the Red Cross vehicles, in protracted, chaotic scenes.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the chaotic handover was unacceptable, in a statement immediately after the release. “I view with great severity the shocking scenes during the release of our hostages,” said Netanyahu. “This is further proof of the unimaginable cruelty of the Hamas terrorist organization.”
Israel delayed the slated release of Palestinian prisoners in protest of the chaotic handover, with Netanyahu’s office saying it would not proceed “until the safe passage of our hostages can be guaranteed in the next releases.”
Berger and the Thai hostages were held by the Hamas terror group, while Yehoud and Mozes were held by Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Berger, an Israel Defense Forces surveillance soldier, was abducted from the military’s Nahal Oz base, while Yehoud and Mozes were both taken from their homes in Kibbutz Nir Oz.
The Thai hostages were among 31 foreign nationals kidnapped in the Hamas attack who were working in Israel, many of them as farmhands in Israel’s agricultural heartland near the Gaza border, reportedly including some on Nir Oz.
Previously, seven hostages — four soldiers and three civilians, all women — have been released in two batches since the accord with Hamas came into effect last Sunday. Berger was kidnapped along with the four other soldiers and held together with them by Hamas until they were released on Saturday.
She was released on Thursday morning in northern Gaza’s Jabalia, at a ceremony similar to the one her comrades had to endure five days ago, surrounded by masked Hamas gunmen.
She too was dressed in olive garb meant to look like an IDF uniform and given a Hamas “gift bag” and framed certificate. She waved to the crowd of Gazans gathered in front of the stage before being led by armed men to the Red Cross representatives.
Prior to her release, Red Cross representatives were seen on the stage signing documents.
The Red Cross transported the freed hostage soldier to IDF and Shin Bet forces inside Gaza, after which she was escorted out of the Strip to a military facility near the border to reunite with her parents and undergo initial assessments by doctors and mental health officers.
She emerged from a Red Cross vehicle at the IDF facility no longer wearing the fake military uniform she was forced by Hamas to don for the handover. Video released by the military showed her embracing an IDF medical officer before getting into another vehicle to exit the Strip.
Israel Prison Services delays release of 110 Palestinian terrorist prisoners slated to be freed in deal
The release of Palestinian prisoners is expected to occur at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday after a significant delay of several hours. Israel Prison Service was instructed by the political echelon to halt the release of Palestinian prisoners following the chaotic release of the seven hostages in the Gaza Strip earlier in the day.
The Palestinian prisoners were already on buses and started leaving the prison. At the last moment, the political echelon gave an order to halt the release.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with Defense Minister Israel Katz, have ordered the delay in the release of the terrorists scheduled to be released today – until the safe exit of our hostages is guaranteed in the next few days,” the prime minister’s spokesperson noted.
“Israel is demanding that the mediators achieve this,” the spokesperson added.
In first since ceasefire began: IDF intercepts UAV in Lebanese territory
The IDF on Thursday morning confirmed that a Hezbollah UAV launched towards Israeli territory was intercepted.
The UAV was intercepted over Lebanon, and set off sirens earlier in the Metula area. Those sirens were initially reported as “false alarms.”
“A short while ago, a Hezbollah surveillance UAV that was launched toward Israeli territory was intercepted by the IAF. No sirens were sounded in accordance with protocol,” the IDF said.
“The IDF will not allow Hezbollah terrorist activities in Lebanon and will operate to remove any threat posed to the State of Israel and its citizens.”
This is the first interception since Israel and Lebanon signed a ceasefire agreement over two months ago.
Under the agreement, the IDF is expected to pass control of southern Lebanon to the Lebanese army. The Lebanese army, however, has not sent sufficient forces to the area, such that the IDF has been forced to remain in the area and the ceasefire has been extended.
Earlier this week, the British Times reported that Suhil Bahij Gharb, a senior intelligence officer in the Lebanese army’s unit for southern Lebanon, allegedly passed the Hezbollah terror group sensitive information from the war room shared with the US and France.
According to the report, dozens of senior Lebanese military officials leaked to Hezbollah sensitive information on the IDF’s movements during the course of the sixty-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. This information allowed Hezbollah to move its weapons and equipment without being caught by the IDF.
Gazans who sped north are deciding on their own to go back south
Some of the over 300,000 Gazans who sped north to get to their hometowns as soon as the IDF allowed them to cross the former no-go zone of the Netzarim Corridor just a few days ago are regretting that decision and have begun returning south, Abu Ali Express reported Thursday.
The Israeli Telegram channel ran a translated Arab news clip from Tuesday, where a female interviewer spoke with young men striding along the A-Rashid coastal road that was serving as the main route for Gazans to head back home in the north – but they were using it to go in the opposite direction.
When she asked where they were from, they said they had been in the south, they walked to their old neighborhood in the north, and were now returning to the south.
“We walked there yesterday, and today we are coming back,” one told her.
When she asked what the atmosphere was like “in Gaza [City],” and how they found the going, they answered immediately, “Destruction, complete destruction.”
They had no interest in staying under such circumstances, with their houses gone and “huge sand dunes in their place,” they said.
One commented, “We’ll leave it in God’s hands,” while another young man, with a more practical bent, said, “Find people a solution. Where should we go?”
“We want to live, sleep, we want to find shelter… there is no shelter there,” he added, so they were “returning home,” referring to where they had stayed safe over the course of the war.
“That’s the best solution,” he declared.
When the interviewer asked if they really thought that it was the right move to return, he responded, “Yes, yes. Now that is our place, the one we want to return to.”
A whole family then passed by on a horse-drawn cart and when she called out, “Are you also returning?” they answered, “Yes, [because] there’s no water, no nothing.”
Several people could also be heard saying off-camera to “Open the crossing points” for them, meaning the border crossings to allow them to leave the Gaza Strip.
The only other country besides Israel that has a land border with Gaza is Egypt, and it has kept its gates very firmly shut against any kind of mass influx of Gazan refugees for the entire war.
Over the last few days, U.S. President Donald Trump has brought up the idea to both Egyptian and Jordanian leaders of allowing entry to tens of thousands of Gazans at least until the devastation of war can be cleared somewhat, and has been firmly turned down.
The interviewer was thrown by what she had seen and heard, saying, “This is indeed an unusual situation, dear viewers, the return of those who had been uprooted from Gaza City going back to the places they had left” in the south.
She specifically named the Al Mouassi safe zone, which was set up by Israel along the coast near Khan Yunis some nine months ago and is well supplied with humanitarian aid.
She also noted that there was no problem to walk in either direction on the coast, in which no officials or soldiers of any kind could be seen.
Israel cuts ties with UNRWA over links with terror groups, as ban comes into effect
An Israeli ban on the United Nation’s agency for Palestinians because of its ties to terror organizations, including Hamas, came into effect on Thursday, a day after the Supreme Court rejected a petition from a rights group contesting the move.
UNRWA, formally titled the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, is now banned from operating on Israeli soil, and contact between it and Israeli officials is also forbidden.
The ban was passed by the Knesset in November with a wide majority, with the support of opposition parties, amid a series of revelations about employees of the agency who were actively involved in terror groups in the Gaza Strip, and repeated use of UNRWA infrastructure for terror activities. Israel has also provided evidence that the agency’s schools incited hatred of Israel and glorification of attacks against Israelis.
The Supreme Court noted in its Wednesday ruling against Palestinian human rights group Adalah’s petition that the legislation “prohibits UNRWA activity only on the sovereign territory of the State of Israel,” but “does not prohibit such activity in the areas of Judea-Samaria and the Gaza Strip,” referring to the West Bank by its biblical name.
The ban does apply, however, to East Jerusalem, where UNRWA has a field headquarters for its operations in the West Bank.
UNRWA has for decades run schools and clinics in East Jerusalem for tens of thousands of registered refugees there. The vast majority of East Jerusalem Palestinians have not sought Israeli citizenship, an option that is formally available to them, though applications are often rejected.
The Israeli ban on UNRWA, which has been backed by Washington, has drawn condemnation from aid groups and US allies.
In a statement reacting to the judgment, Adalah said the law would come into effect “disregarding the catastrophic humanitarian consequences.”
The agency says it has brought in 60 percent of the food aid that has reached Gaza since the war started with Hamas’s brutal October 7, 2023, onslaught on Israel.
UNRWA was established in 1949 following Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. It provides aid, health, and education to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and neighboring Arab countries — Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.
Some 5.9 million people are registered as Palestinian refugees by UNRWA, because they are descended from Arabs displaced in the war surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948.
Israel has long argued that UNRWA perpetuates the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by using this definition of refugee, the only case in which the status is passed down generationally.
It is one of two UN refugee agencies. While UNRWA caters to Palestinians, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is responsible for all other refugees around the world.
The hostility between Israel and the UN body intensified in the wake of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, with accusations that UNRWA employees participated in the assault.
“Humanitarian aid doesn’t equal UNRWA, and UNRWA doesn’t equal humanitarian aid. UNRWA equals an organization infested with Hamas terror activity,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein wrote on X ahead of the ban.
“This is why, beginning on January 30 and in accordance with Israeli law, Israel will have no contact with UNRWA.”
Government spokesman David Mencer told journalists on Wednesday that “UNRWA is riddled with Hamas operatives,” adding that “if a state funds UNRWA, that state is funding terrorists.”
“UNRWA employs over 1,200 Hamas members, including terrorists who carried out the October 7 massacre,” Mencer said. “This isn’t aid, it’s direct financial support for terror.”
