Watch: Hamas shares video of release of 2 elderly Israeli hostages

The two women were freed after a video by Hamas’s Qassam Brigades showed them being handed over to members of the International Red Cross. In the short clip, the two women, looking frail, are seen dressed in purple dresses and surrounded by masked men holding guns. The gunmen offer them food and drinks at one point before facilitating their transfer.

Cooper and Lifshitz are among the four hostages who have been released so far. Two Americans were released on Sunday. Israel believes that more than 220 people, including foreigners and Israeli military and civilians, are being held hostage in Gaza.

Though it is unclear why these two were released first, Lifshitz’s kids told the media that the elderly lady uses oxygen when she sleeps and “might not survive” if she does not get medicines, reported The Times of Israel.

Following her release, Lifshitz told the Israeli media house Ynet that she did not know her whereabouts in Gaza. “They schooled us,” she said. “They loaded me onto a motorcycle… with one terrorist holding me from the front and the other from behind so that I wouldn’t fall. We crossed the border fence into the Strip, and at first they held me in the town of Abasan al-Kabira, which is close to [Kibbutz] Be’eri. After that, I don’t know where I was taken.”

In a message on X (formerly known as Twitter), the Red Cross said, “We facilitated the release of 2 more hostages, transporting them out of #Gaza this evening. Our role as a neutral intermediary makes this work possible & we are ready to facilitate any future release. We hope that they will soon be back with their loved ones.”

The release of the two abductees was preceded by rumours that Israel had refused to accept the following negotiations with Hamas. As per a report by The Wall Street Journal, that effort failed over Israel’s refusal to accept Hamas’s demand to allow fuel into Gaza.

Israeli government thanked both Egypt and the Red Cross for their roles in freeing and transporting Lifshitz and Cooper, and vowed to “continue to work to the best of our abilities and with full effort to locate all the missing and bring all the hostages home.”

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