Four Israeli female soldiers, released on Saturday by Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, have now arrived in Israel, the army announced.
Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, and Naama Levy crossed the border from Gaza into Israeli territory, according to a military statement released later in the morning.
Earlier that morning, four vehicles from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) arrived in Gaza City to retrieve the four hostages.
Before getting into the Red Cross vehicles, the four hostages were presented on a podium installed in a city square in Gaza.
A dense crowd, managed by masked fighters from the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas' military wing) and the al-Quds Brigades (the armed wing of Islamic Jihad) surrounded the podium, as reported by an AFP journalist.
According to Palestinian sources, Israel is set to release 200 Palestinian prisoners from its jails on Saturday in exchange for the four soldiers.
This list of prisoners includes 120 serving life sentences, with 70 of them to be exiled from the Palestinian Territories, one of the sources specified anonymously, given the sensitivity surrounding the issue.
