Only remaining teen hostages and Mia Shem, seen in Hamas hostage video, among 8 released on Thursday
Keren Shem, the mother of French-Israeli woman Mia Shem who is held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, holds a photograph of her daughter as she speaks to the press in Tel Aviv, Oct. 17, 2023. (Gil Cohen Magen/AFP via Getty Images)
(JTA) — The 21-year-old woman who was seen in the first hostage video Hamas published following its attack was among the eight people released alive from Gaza on Thursday, on the seventh day of a tenuous truce between the terror group and Israel.
Mia Shem was featured in a video nine days after Oct. 7, when Hamas invaded Israel, killing 1,200 and taking more than 240 hostages. Shem was abducted from the Nova music festival at Kibbutz Re’im, where 360 people died, and was seen in the video receiving medical care in Gaza.
On Thursday, her arm was bandaged as she was released and reunited with her mother. Her aunt said she had been treated by a veterinarian in Gaza.
Shem was one of two women released early in the day before a long lull, after which six more hostages were transferred to the Red Cross for release to Israel. Those freed on Thursday include the last two teens who were held hostage, a brother and sister.
It was a departure from the routine established over the past week, during which at least 10 women and children were released daily, as required by the truce agreement. The future of the ceasefire was uncertain as of midnight Israel time.
Along with Shem, the other hostages released Thursday are:
- Aisha Ziadna, 17, and Bilal Ziadna, 18, two Bedouin Israelis who were abducted with other members of their family while tending cows on a kibbutz near their home in the city of Rahat. Their father and older brother remain hostages. Another member of their family, Youssef Ziadna, is credited with saving 30 people at the Nova festival.
- Sapir Cohen, 29. She is the girlfriend of Sasha Trupanov, whose mother and grandmother were released on Wednesday but who remains a hostage.
- Shani Goren, 29. She reportedly cared for a child hostage, Eitan Yahalomi, whom she knew from Kibbutz Nir Oz and who was released on Monday.
- Ilana Gritzewsky, 30. An immigrant from Mexico, Gritzewsky was captured at her home on Kibbutz Nir Oz. Her boyfriend, Matan Zangauker, remains in captivity.
- Nili Margalit, 41. A nurse from Nir Oz who works at Soroka Hospital, where some released hostages have been taken, she reportedly tended to some of the elderly hostages in Gaza.
- Amit Soussna, 40. A lawyer who was captured from her home in Kfar Aza, Soussna was the other woman released early Thursday with Shem.
Israeli media reports had said that three bodies would also be returned to Israel on Thursday, but no further information has been released. The father of the only Israeli children still known to be in Gaza, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, appeared in a video released by Hamas on Thursday pleading for the bodies of his wife and children to be returned to Israel for burial. Israel has not confirmed or refuted Hamas’ claim, made Wednesday, that the young boys, ages 4 and 10 months, had died with their mother Shiri Bibas.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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