The Israeli authorities are making preparations to welcome dwelling dozens of hostages held incommunicado by Hamas for over a 12 months in Gaza, with out realizing whether or not they are going to return starved, traumatized or useless.
Thirty-three hostages are purported to be freed within the first section of the Gaza cease-fire settlement between Israel and Hamas, within the first such main launch since a weeklong cease-fire seven weeks into the battle. Some households have caught glimpses of their family members in Hamas-directed hostage movies. However it’s removed from clear in what situation the captives will return.
At Israeli hospitals, well being officers have been getting ready remoted areas the place the hostages can start recuperating in privateness. Israel’s Well being Ministry has drafted an intensive protocol for his or her psychological and bodily therapy. There are specific considerations that they could be severely malnourished.
“Those who had been freed again then had been already poorly nourished,” Hagar Mizrahi, a senior Israeli well being ministry official, mentioned of the hostages freed through the 2023 truce. “Think about their scenario now, after a further 400 days. We’re extraordinarily nervous about this.”
After Hamas led the Oct. 7, 2023, assault on Israel, killing about 1,200 folks and capturing about 250 others, about 105 Israeli and international hostages had been freed within the weeklong truce in November that 12 months. A number of had been later launched in Israeli army operations, and Israeli troopers recovered the our bodies of dozens of others.
However round 98 hostages remained in Gaza, dozens of whom are presumed useless by the Israeli authorities.
Of the ladies, older males and different hostages returning underneath the primary section of this cease-fire deal, many are believed to have been held within the militant group’s warren of tunnels in Gaza, circumstances prone to go away bodily and psychological scars.
Well being officers have been poring over each piece of intelligence — together with the hostage movies — in an effort to discern the hostages’ situation, Dr. Mizrahi mentioned. A committee of officers that features Dr. Mizrahi has decided that some had been killed.
Israeli officers say the logistics of the discharge will likely be broadly just like these through the earlier cease-fire, when 105 hostages had been launched in trade for 240 Palestinians jailed in Israel.
In that trade, Hamas fighters handed over hostages — principally ladies and kids — to the Worldwide Committee of the Pink Cross. The Pink Cross’s employees ferried the captives from Gaza in a marked ambulance to Egypt earlier than taking them to Israel.
On the border crossing, Israeli intelligence brokers verified their identities. Across the identical time, Israeli safety officers launched a specified group of Palestinian ladies and teenage prisoners.
This time, the Israeli authorities have established three reception factors to obtain the hostages alongside the Gaza border, based on an Israeli army official. These will likely be staffed by Israeli troopers, in addition to docs and psychologists, mentioned the official, who spoke on situation of anonymity in accordance with protocol.
From there, the hostages will likely be taken to the Israeli hospitals which were getting ready to look after them, the official mentioned.
The 105 hostages launched in November 2023 got here dwelling after roughly 50 days in captivity in Gaza. They arrived in a rustic that had basically modified; some discovered solely then about associates and family members who had been killed within the Hamas-led assault.
At first, officers aimed to reintegrate returning hostages as rapidly as doable, based on Dr. Mizrahi. Now, the well being authorities advocate that the hostages being launched stay within the hospital for at the very least 4 days, if not longer, she mentioned.
Within the meantime, the hostages’ relations — a few of whom themselves survived captivity — can solely wait.
“Final time, we noticed the Pink Cross transferring the hostages, and a few of them had been operating to the family, hugging them,” mentioned Einat Yehene, a scientific psychologist working with the Hostage Households Discussion board, an advocacy group. “It’s not going to be straightforward and comparable this time, given the bodily and the emotional circumstances we count on.”