Palestinian hostages released into devastation, heartbreak

Compilation of news reports – IAK staff

(Day 738 of Israel’s Latest War on Gaza)

Civil defense workers and loved ones continue to dig out bodies of Palestinians that were buried in the rubble during the war.

The number of known starvation/malnutrition deaths stands at 463, including 157 children.

NOTE: Only the dead who are brought to hospitals are included in the official fatality count. At this point, most of the dead being recorded have been recovered from under the rubble. Others have succumbed to earlier injuries.

Additional statistics below.

BREAKING: Israel kills seven Palestinians Tuesday in violation of Gaza ceasefire

HOSTAGE EXCHANGE NEWS & HEADLINES:

IAK refers to the imprisoned Palestinians as “hostages” instead of “prisoners” for several reasons: they are being held by the Israeli military court system, which human rights groups have characterized as part of an apartheid system; a large number are held indefinitely without charge under administrative detention, based on undisclosed evidence; those who are charged (including children) often confess under torture (official Israeli military statistics showed that 99.6% of cases ended in conviction.

Many Palestinians and supporters consider the imprisoned to be “political prisoners” or “hostages” because they view their arrest as a tool to enforce Israel’s occupation and suppress resistance. This viewpoint holds that their captivity is used as leverage in political exchange – as has been the case during hostage exchanges in the past two years.

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Israel frees nearly 2,000 Palestinian hostages under Gaza ceasefire deal

A total of 1,718 Palestinians were released into the Gaza Strip, all of whom were abducted by Israeli forces from within Gaza during the past two years. In addition, Israel released 250 Palestinians who had been serving high or life sentences in Israeli prisons, 88 of whom were released in the West Bank, while the rest were deported to Gaza and Egypt.

In the decimated city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, thousands of Palestinians gathered to receive their returnees, including 25 West Bank Palestinians whom the Israeli internal intelligence service, the Shabak (Shin Bet), recommended to be deported to Gaza.

Israeli drones flew over a gathering of Palestinians in the West Bank, as they awaited the arrival of released hostages, dropping leaflets that read “we are watching you everywhere. If you show any support for a terrorist group, you will expose yourself to arrest and punishment” (continue reading here).

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Released Palestinians show signs of starvation, beatings

Most of the Palestinian men released in the West Bank looked to be in bad shape. Their cheekbones jutted out, with some bearing the marks of recent beatings and a few unable to walk without being propped up by their relatives.

Israel forbade people from celebrating the release on Monday, firing teargas at family members and journalists waiting near Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank, where detainees were kept. A flyer distributed by the Israeli military warned, “we are surveilling you everywhere” and threatening that if they supported “terrorist organizations” they could be arrested. No Palestinian flags were to be raised; no interviews were to be given.

[NOTE: Israelis welcoming their released hostages waved flags, celebrated, and gave interviews freely.]

Before Monday’s release, 11,056 Palestinians were held in Israeli prisons, according to statistics from the Israeli NGO HaMoked in October 2025. At least 3,500 of those were held in administrative detention without trial. An Israeli military database has indicated that only a quarter of those detained in Gaza were classified as fighters (continue reading here).

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Once a Palestinian captive is released, that’s it, right?

No.

Israel tends to re-arrest Palestinians shortly after they are freed in captive swaps.

In November 2023, Israel released 240 Palestinian hostages in a swap for Israeli captives held by Hamas in Gaza as part of a temporary ceasefire deal. Weeks later, Israel re-arrested 30 of those people.

“Israel has a long history of using incarceration and arrests as a political weapon, and sometimes that could be for bargaining purposes for a later date,” Mustafa told Al Jazeera. “There’s also no guarantee [with this current deal] that those being released won’t be rearrested again,” she added (continue reading here).

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Freed Israeli hostage says food ran low when aid was blocked

Yehuda Cohen, father of freed hostage Nimrod Cohen, who was released Monday from Hamas captivity, said his son told him that after humanitarian aid was blocked in March, “there was less food.”

GAZA NEWS & HEADLINES:

(For some basic info on the Palestine-Israel conflict, go here. For more critical context, skim this, this, and this. To read about a remarkable but underreported, 20-month-long peaceful protest in Gaza against Israel, go here.)

1.5 million Palestinians left homeless, 60 million tons of rubble across Gaza; local source says

More than 1.5 million Palestinians have been left homeless and 60 million tons of rubble now cover the Gaza Strip following two years of devastating Israeli bombardment, according to Amjad Shawa, director of the Gaza Civil Society Network.

Shawa said that between 300,000 and 400,000 displaced residents have managed to return to Gaza City and northern Gaza since the ceasefire came into effect, but they are facing dire living conditions and the near-total collapse of essential infrastructure.

“The humanitarian catastrophe caused by the aggression is unprecedented in modern history,” Shawa said, noting that more than 80 per cent of homes across the enclave have been destroyed, making reconstruction “one of the greatest challenges facing Gaza in the coming period.”

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We Aren’t Finished Feeding Gaza, U.S. Military Contractors Say

Amid ongoing uncertainty about the future of a controversial, Israel-approved aid distribution scheme, on Monday one of its lead contractors, UG Solutions, said it will keep working in the region – despite pushback from Palestinian political parties and the international aid community.

Critics said that in addition to violating humanitarian principles by deployed armed guards, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation served as a tool of Israeli policy by forcing Palestinians to make mileslong treks to southern Gaza, during which thousands were shot.

Palestinians speaking to The Associated Press on Sunday said that at least three GHF aid sites had been abandoned as a condition of the ceasefire and hostage handover between Israel and Hamas. In a statement to the news outlet, however, the foundation cast the closure of the sites as a temporary pause (continue reading here).

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We Aren’t Finished Destroying Gaza, Israel’s Defense Minister Says

In open defiance of the newly agreed ceasefire agreement, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz has declared on X that the occupation army will resume its military onslaught on Gaza once the remaining hostages are returned.

“Israel’s great challenge after the phase of returning the hostages will be the destruction of all of Hamas’s terror tunnels in Gaza, directly by the IDF and through the international mechanism to be established under the leadership and supervision of the United States” said Katz, adding, “I have instructed the IDF to prepare for carrying out the mission.”

RELATED: ‘My joy was shattered’: Journalist grieves killing of third son as ceasefire arrives too late

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Reminder: Hamas did not surrender

The Palestinian resistance “didn’t surrender” and “didn’t agree to disarmament or demilitarization,” said Jeremy Scahill on The Electronic Intifada Livestream for 9 October.

“A nuclear-armed serial killer masquerading as a nation state, with the full backing of the United States, has failed to impose a surrender on Palestinians wearing Adidas flip flops, tracksuits, and operating with largely domestically manufactured weapons,” Scahill, co-founder of Drop Site News, added.

BRIEF ANALYSIS OF TRUMP’S MONDAY STATEMENTS:

In the Knesset, Trump gives a passing message to Palestinians

The US president called on Palestinians in Gaza to focus on “stability, safety, dignity and economic development”.

There was no acknowledgement of Israeli atrocities or of the decades of displacement, dispossession and occupation that the International Court of Justice says amount to apartheid.

“The choice for Palestinians could not be more clear. This is their chance to turn forever from the path of terror* and violence – it’s been extreme – to exile the wicked forces of hate** that are in their midst,” Trump said, adding, “After tremendous pain and death and hardship, now is the time to concentrate on building their people up, instead of trying to tear Israel down,” Trump said of Palestinians.

Further alienating the Palestinians, he added, “From October 7 until this week, Israel has been a nation at war, enduring burdens that only a proud and faithful people could withstand…Not only for Israelis, but also for Palestinians and for many others, the long and painful nightmare is finally over.”

*NOTE: The use of the word “terrorist” for a group that resists occupation and oppression is a political, not fact-based choice. In reality, international law supports the efforts of resistance groups against an occupying power, the UN extending that right to the point of armed resistance. Hamas was exercising – albeit imperfectly – its internationally recognized right to resist the oppressor and occupier of its people.

**Trump’s claim that Palestinians’ grievances with Israel are driven by hate, rather than by the material conditions Israel has imposed on them – including occupation, blockade, and now genocide – is a either a sign of his ignorance of the true roots of the conflict, or a deliberate obfuscation.

RELATED:

Netanyahu hails Trump as ‘Israel’s greatest friend’

Swiss cheese diplomacy: Trump’s hollow peace parade in Jerusalem

The Sumud Aid Flotilla did more than Trump to Achieve Gaza’s Fragile Peace

Trump’s Gaza ‘Peace Plan’: The Predators to Share the Spoils

REMINDER: Israeli PM Netanyahu remains wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

HERE’S WHAT ISRAELIS ARE READING:

This deal only confirms what we have long known

“Release the hostages or keep Hamas in power?” That was the dilemma that has accompanied us over the past two years. This dilemma is built on a false premise. We were never able to remove Hamas from power by military force*. In fact, the death of each father in Gaza drove his children to join Hamas.

That is one of the reasons Hamas found itself, after two years of war, with nearly the same manpower it had at the beginning. Many have argued that the only way to dismantle Hamas’s armed and political dominance in Gaza is by building an alternative to it, something which Netanyahu’s government has not devoted a single moment to since the war began.

From what we know of the recent deal, it seems we find ourselves, after two years of fighting, right back where we started: Hamas remains the dominant power in the Gaza Strip.

*NOTE: Analysts have been saying this since the beginning of the war/genocide: Palestinians’ grievance with Israel has nothing to do with hatred of Jews or antisemitic textbooks in schools, and everything to do with how Israel treats Palestinians.

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Hamas violates* deal: the 24 slain hostages still left behind in Gaza

The scenario Israel had long prepared for has come to pass: Hamas violated the agreement from its very start, announcing the return of only four deceased hostages out of the 28 it holds in the Gaza Strip.

IDF spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said that since the breach became known, intensive efforts have been underway at every level to compel the terror group to fulfill its commitments. “We don’t forget them for a moment,” Defrin said. “We will not rest until they all return to their families and to an Israeli grave.”

*NOTE: In reality, Hamas had indicated from the beginning of the ceasefire of the possibility that not all remains of hostages would be located by the deadline. At the same time, Israel violated the ceasefire by killing at least 7 Palestinians in Gaza, while 154 of the promised Palestinian hostages were not released back into their homelands, but were exiled.

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HEADLINES FROM ISRAELI MEDIA:

Red Cross: Returning Israeli Hostages’ Bodies Will Take Time, Some May Never Be Found

Israeli defense officials said to recommend Rafah crossing stays shut until bodies of 24 hostages returned

Trump earns fresh comparisons to Cyrus the Great as last living hostages return home

After Two Years of Dodging Deals, Netanyahu Allies Claim He Had a Plan All Along

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OCCUPIED WEST BANK/EAST JERUSALEM HEADLINES:

(Every day, Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem endure dozens of incidents like the ones below, at the hands of Israeli soldiers and/or settlers. For background on the West Bank, read this and this. For information on the significance of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, read this and this.)

How Israel’s ‘gates’ have become tools of psychological control

Israeli Army Abducts 14 Palestinians In Deir Istiya – Salfit

Israeli Army Detains, Injures Several Palestinians In Hebron

Israeli Army Abducts 9 Palestinians, Shoots 1 In Ramallah, Jerusalem And Tulkarem

West Bank: Colonizers, Soldiers Attack Palestinian Farmers

Hundreds of Israeli Colonizers Invade the Al-Aqsa Mosque

Israeli Forces Shoot 3 Palestinians in Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and Tulkarem

Israeli Colonizers, Injure Five Palestinians, Torch Car, Near Bethlehem

Israeli Colonizers Invade Villages, Cut Trees, In West Bank

OTHER NEWS & HEADLINES:

Trump now questions Tony Blair’s suitability for role in Gaza

Pro-Israel group gets £1m from UK government to ‘identify’ antisemitism

ICYMI (IN CASE YOU MISSED IT) – A SELECTION OF YESTERDAY’S HEADLINES:

(Read yesterday’s daily update here.)

TAKE ACTION FOR GAZA

If Americans Knew has prepared a whole set of resources for educating and informing the public on the situation in Gaza: short videos, statistics, links, and downloadable flyers that you can print and hand out.

Watch this introductory video, and visit the website. Then pitch in to make a difference!

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – OCTOBER 13, 2025*:

• At least 68,921 Palestinians killed, 180,105 injured – including:
• at least 67,869 killed in Gaza (~20,000 children, 23,000 women) 
• at least 1,052 killed in the West Bank (~212 children)
• at least 170,105 injured in Gaza
• more than 10,000 injured in the West Bank
• at least 463 have died from malnutrition in Gaza, including 157 children

*NOTE: Thousands of those killed in Gaza have yet to be identified, and an estimated 9,500 more are still buried under rubble. Additionally, the numbers of injured and starved are very conservative estimates.

Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – October 13, 2025: ~1,658 – including ~1,139 on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 468 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza, about 52 military and civilians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel. 

By one count, Israeli attacks have killed approximately 271 Palestinian journalists and media workers; Palestinians have killed 4 Israeli journalists (other groups have tallied between 205 and 323 Palestinian journalists killed – depending on the criteria used).

NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.

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