New Delhi: Two Israeli women in their 80s, who were among the hundreds of hostages taken by Hamas in a deadly raid on southern Israel earlier this month, were freed by the Palestinian militant group on Monday for humanitarian reasons, news agency Reuters reported. The Israeli government confirmed that Nurit Cooper and Yocheved Lifshitz were handed over to the Israeli army and taken to a hospital. They were abducted from a kibbutz near the Gaza border along with their husbands, who remained in captivity, as well as an American mother and daughter who were released on Friday.
The hostage crisis was sparked by the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, which killed 1,400 people in the worst single-day violence since Israel's founding 75 years ago. The U.S. has publicly backed Israel's right to self-defense, but privately urged it to refrain from a ground invasion of Gaza, where Israeli airstrikes have killed hundreds of people and trapped civilians in dire conditions, Reuters uoting its sources said.
U.S. Urges Restraint In Gaza War
The sources, who spoke before Monday's hostage releases, said the U.S. wanted to buy time for negotiations to free the remaining captives, especially after the surprise release of Americans Judith and Natalie Raanan on Friday. U.S. President Joe Biden said he would only consider a ceasefire after the hostages were freed.
Israel continued to pound Gaza from the air on Monday, targeting more than 320 sites, including a tunnel with Hamas terrorists, lookout posts and missile launchers. It also massed troops and tanks near the border for a possible ground assault. Gaza's health ministry said 436 people died in the last 24 hours of bombing, mostly in the south of the crowded coastal strip.
With Gaza's 2.3 million people facing shortages of essentials, European leaders joined the U.N. and Arab countries in calling for a "humanitarian pause" in the fighting to allow aid to enter. A U.S. envoy was working with Israel, Egypt and the U.N. to create a "sustained delivery mechanism" for aid to Gaza after some convoys crossed from Egypt on Monday, the U.S. State Department said.
The U.N. said Gazans also needed shelter from the relentless bombing that has destroyed large parts of the Hamas-controlled territory. The conflict also spread beyond Gaza.
Israeli planes struck Hezbollah positions in south Lebanon, where the Iran-backed group is based. There were also clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and more rocket fire from Hamas into Israel.
The health ministry said 5,087 Palestinians, including 2,055 children, have been killed in two weeks of strikes. Israel's police and intelligence agency released videos of their interrogations of Hamas gunmen who participated in the Oct. 7 killings.
