Qatar and Egypt Negotiated For Release of 12 Thai Hostages

In the year since, Ms. Al-Khateb said, she has been overwhelmed with depression. But now, standing outside the prison, she was gripped by a sense of anticipation. For the first time in a year, she said, “I am extremely happy.”

Most among the crowd had come to offer their support to the family members of those being released and enjoy a small, if fleeting, moment of relief. Since the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, Palestinian residents of the West Bank have had their own experience of the war.

New checkpoints have been erected and barricades built, making movement between some areas practically impossible. Violence by Israeli settlers has reached record highs, according to the United Nations. And the Israeli military has carried out nightly raids in the West Bank in what it says is part of a counterterrorism operation.

“They have built fear in our hearts,” said Hanna Tufaheh, 50. “Everyone feels extremely depressed, and it’s extremely difficult for everyone.”

As she spoke, the call to prayer rang out from a nearby loudspeaker, and men lined up in the street to pray. Jihad Mtoor, 32, stood with a group of friends smoking cigarettes and waiting as cars streaked by, bringing more Palestinians to join the crowd.

For Mr. Mtoor and his friends, the release of prisoners was a small victory in a war they did not expect to end anytime soon.

“What we are here to celebrate came from Hamas in Gaza; this is not the first, nor will it be the last prisoner deal with the Gaza war,” Mr. Mtoor said. As he spoke, his friends began rattling off the names of key Palestinian leaders being held in Israeli prisons, suggesting that perhaps they, too, could be released as the conflict drags on.

As the death toll in Gaza mounts, Mr. Mtoor added, the war “will and already has encouraged the new generation to resist.”

Qatar began the effort for release of Thais captives in a separate mediation channel with Hamas after the Thai foreign minister visited Doha, Qatar on Oct. 31, according to two officials briefed on the talks. The Egyptians, who initially received the hostages on Friday, also helped, they said. The United States did not play a role in these negotiations.

The talks were kept separate from the ones on Israeli and dual-nationality hostages, primarily women and children. The Thai hostages were all men, one of the officials said, and Hamas has generally been resistant to releasing adult male hostages.

The released Thais were transported to Hatzerim Air Force Base in southern Israel, the foreign ministry said. From there, they were expected to go to Shamir Medical Center, where they would meet with Thai embassy officials, and to remain under medical supervision for 48 hours without access to outsiders.

Outside of Israel and Palestine, Thailand has suffered the heaviest toll in the war. Thailand is the largest source of foreign farm labor in Israel — more than 30,000 people from impoverished, rural regions were working in Israel’s agricultural sector before the attack, with thousands more undocumented.

“I am very happy and I really hope that my husband is one of the people in this group,” said Suntharee Saelee, the wife of Gong Saelao, a 25-year-old avocado farmworker in Israel. “I don’t think I can sleep tonight because I’m excited and want to see more news on this.”

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin of Thailand, who took office in August, has come under immense pressure to resolve the hostage crisis. On Oct. 31, the deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Parnpree Bhahiddha-Nukara, traveled to Qatar and Egypt, whose governments have helped broker the release of hostages, to coordinate efforts on behalf of the Thai hostages. In Doha, Qatar, he also met with the foreign minister of Iran, a major backer of Hamas, who was visiting Qatar at that time.

A day after Mr. Parnpree left for Qatar, Mr. Srettha told Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a telephone call to take care of Thai workers because they are not part of the conflict and have helped contribute to Israel’s development.

The Thai government thanked those involved in securing the release of these hostages, including the governments of Qatar, Israel, Egypt, Iran and Malaysia, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, the foreign ministry said.

On Oct. 26, Thailand dispatched a delegation made up of its Muslim minorities to Tehran to hold talks with Hamas in a bid to secure the hostages’ release. Areepen Uttarasin, a lead negotiator, told reporters that he had stressed the innocence of Thai nationals.

“They assured me that they were taking good care of them, but they couldn’t tell me the release date,” he said. “They were waiting for the right time.”

After the talks, Mr. Areepen said the Hamas interlocutors “acknowledged our concerns because they know that Thailand has offered kindness and benefits to the Muslim community.” “They respect Thailand,” he said.

Julian Barnes and Ryn Jirenuwat contributed reporting.

The Israeli military would not answer questions about whether its forces shot and killed Palestinians trying to go back to their homes. But it said its forces were “stationed along the designated operational lines of the pause” in accordance with the agreement.

Ahead of the cease-fire, Israel had warned Gazans that it would prohibit them from trying to move from southern Gaza to the north during the cessation in hostilities.

For Gazans, not being allowed to return home even temporarily during a pause in the fighting fed their fears that Israel plans to displace them permanently, as happened in 1948 during the war surrounding Israel’s creation.

“Displacement of parts of Gaza’s civilian population is permitted only if required for the civilians’ security or imperative military reasons,” said Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. “The civilian population needs to be able to return as soon as possible — permanent displacement is a war crime.”

Israeli forces invaded Gaza weeks ago and ordered residents of northern Gaza to move to the south of the small territory. The Israeli military now occupies much of the northern half of the strip, and some 1.7 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinian residents have been forced to flee their homes. The displaced are sheltering in schools, mosques, hospitals or with family and friends.

On Friday morning, Kareem al-Nasir, 30, joined thousands of other Palestinians trying to return from central Gaza to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip. But as they tried to make their way along a road on foot, he said, Israeli forces nearby opened fire on them. Mr. al-Nasir said he was shot in the leg and is now unable to walk.

An Egyptian official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, described the same scene, saying an Israeli tank fired at a group of Palestinians at an Israeli checkpoint south of Gaza City on Friday morning and killed two people.

“They said there is a cease-fire. What cease-fire?” said Mr. al-Nasir, back at the school in Deir al-Balah, a city in central Gaza, where he and his family have been seeking shelter since they fled their home in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza. “When we tried to pass, they shot at us and injured and killed us,” he added.

“People wanted to return to their homes,” Mr. al-Nasir said. “We wanted to go see our relatives, see the martyrs, see our homes.”

Video posted by local journalists in Gaza showed hundreds of Palestinians carrying bags and bedding items and walking along roads in the southern city of Khan Younis heading to homes in other parts of southern Gaza, at least temporarily.

Some were still trying to decide if they could make the trek safely.

Nayrouz Qarmout, a Palestinian author from Gaza City in the north, said she fled with her family to southern Gaza weeks ago. She said they had been trying to find out whether they could return.

“But as far as we understand, entering the area is prohibited,” she said.

Even those who know their homes have been destroyed by Israeli airstrikes want to return to see what they can find or salvage from the rubble, she said.

“People are attempting to see what remains of their homes or relatives,” Ms. Qarmout said. “They don’t know anything about what has happened to relatives after they lost all contact with them.”

Communication in Gaza has been difficult since the early days of the war after Israel bombed a telecommunications tower; it has occasionally been plunged into near-total phone and internet blackouts, either because of Israeli disruptions or a lack of fuel.

The cease-fire deal calls for more aid to be allowed into Gaza. Besides its devastating bombardment, Israel has also imposed a near-total siege on Gaza since the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas, the armed Palestinian group that controls the territory. That has severely restricted the deliveries of food, fuel and medicine, worsening a humanitarian crisis for the population that predated the war.

A total of 230 trucks carrying humanitarian aid, medicine and fuel were scheduled to go in on Friday through the Egyptian border, said Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing.

“No one feels safe,” said Mohammad al-Masri, a local journalist who last week fled his home in northern Gaza to Khan Younis.

“I haven’t heard anyone say they will go back home. Everyone is afraid,” he said. “Because at any movement the cease-fire could fall apart.”

Vivian Yee contributed reporting.

Fuel shortages have caused hospitals to close, stalled the distribution of desperately needed humanitarian aid, hindered the ability to prepare food and pump water, and forced two of Gaza’s cellular networks to halt their services, contributing to communications blackouts in the enclave.

Israel agreed on Nov. 17 to the entry of two fuel tankers into Gaza on a daily basis, intended to allow the United Nations to operate desalination and sewage plants. But it has otherwise largely prevented fuel from entering the enclave since Oct. 7, citing security concerns that Hamas will divert it for its own purposes. Israel has said that Hamas stockpiles fuel and prevents its use for civilians, claims that Arab and Western officials have backed.

Before the war, 45 trucks of fuel entered Gaza daily to power civilian infrastructure, including water desalination plants and bakeries, in addition to 500 trucks of food and other supplies, Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of UNRWA, the U.N. agency that aids Palestinian refugees, wrote in The Guardian last month.

In the initial aftermath of the Hamas attacks last month, the Israel military vowed to prevent the delivery of electricity, food, water and fuel, tightening a 16-year blockade it had imposed, along with Egypt, that restricted the flow of imports to the territory and prevented Gazans from leaving.

After days of negotiations, the first shipment of humanitarian aid that crossed the Rafah border in Egypt to reach Gaza on Oct. 21 did not include fuel. Lacking fuel, the enclave’s only power plant had shut down. Hospitals, clinics and shelters ran on backup generators, until those ran dry.

By November, hospitals were crippled by severe fuel shortages; most had closed, and those that remained open were overcrowded and capable of only limited care. At least 40 patients, including at least four premature babies, have died since Nov. 11 because of power cuts, the United Nations said last week, citing hospital officials.

Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest, has been under siege by Israeli forces for more than a week, and it has struggled to treat its most vulnerable patients. The U.N. had also expressed concern that even if fuel were to be delivered outside the hospital, snipers in the area would make it dangerous for staff members to retrieve it.

Israel’s assertion was partly bolstered by the military’s subsequent discovery of a tunnel beneath one section of the site. The military also distributed security camera footage — which it said it had discovered elsewhere in the site — that seemed to show two hostages being led by force into the hospital complex.

To help reporters corroborate its findings, the military took several journalists into the tunnel. The military also released footage of the tunnel that showed its position in relation to the rest of the site.

However, the military has not yet shown evidence of the three other subterranean complexes that it said were under the hospital. The destruction of the one tunnel that it did find means that journalists will now be unable to enter and assess its use.

Palestinian news media reported that the Israeli military withdrew from the hospital on Friday. The Israeli military declined to comment.

Instead, the instructions advise the soldiers to reply along the following lines: “Sweetie, I’m sorry, I don’t know. My job is to take you to safety in Israel. There, people you know will be waiting for you and will answer all your questions.”

According to the guidelines, the number of relatives and neighbors allowed to greet the children should be strictly limited, at least in the first 24 hours after their release. Medical staff examining the children should reassure them with phrases such as, “You are in a safe place now.”

The instructions point to the extreme sensitivity in Israel surrounding the more than 30 children who are believed to be among the roughly 240 people abducted to Gaza during the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks. The captive children have had a major emotional impact on a traumatized country, and their fate has put the hostages at the center of the national agenda.

Here is a look at how some past agreements have held up or collapsed.

• May 2023: Egyptian negotiators mediated a cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a militant group based in Gaza that is smaller than Hamas, ending five days of violence that killed 35 people. A day later, brief rocket fire rattled nerves but the agreement appeared to hold.

• May-June 2021: An 11-day war that represented the worst flare-up of violence in Gaza since 2014 left 230 Gazans dead before it ended with a cease-fire agreement. Less than a month later, Palestinian militants sent incendiary balloons into southern Israel, and Israeli military airstrikes hit targets inside Gaza, causing no casualties but testing the agreement.

• July-August 2014: This major conflict was set off by the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank. Six days after Israel began bombarding Gaza, Egypt proposed a cease-fire that Israel agreed to. Hamas rejected it, saying none of its demands were addressed, and rocket volleys from Gaza and Israeli airstrikes resumed. Egypt announced another cease-fire two days later, but Israel then sent in tanks and ground troops and began firing into Gaza from the sea. In all, nine truces came and went before the conflict ended after 51 days and the deaths of more than 2,000 Palestinians and 70 Israelis.

• November 2012: Eight days of bloody conflict between Israel and Hamas ended with a cease-fire, negotiated by the United States and Egypt, with a one-page memorandum of understanding that left many of the issues that set off the violence unresolved and up for further negotiation. Israel violated the cease-fire by firing on fishermen and farmers approaching newly relaxed security perimeters, but in a concession it also allowed building materials into Gaza for the first time in years.

• January 2009: Israel unilaterally announced a cease-fire after a 22-day war on Hamas in which more than 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed, saying it had achieved its goals. Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups declared their own cease-fire soon afterward. Just two weeks later, militants launched rockets and shells into southern Israel, prompting Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, to threaten “disproportionate” retaliation and straining the cease-fire.

• June 2008: Egypt brokered a six-month truce between Hamas and Israel, ending a period of intense rocket fire from Gaza and Israeli airstrikes and raids. Rocket attacks just five days after the agreement threatened to derail it, but the peace mostly held for five months. By November that year, though, the cease-fire had unraveled, with each side accusing the other of failing to uphold the terms.

It also looked like it would provide a respite for people in Gaza, who have been subjected to nearly seven weeks of Israeli airstrikes since the Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people, according to the Israeli authorities.

The Health Ministry in Gaza has said that more than 13,000 people have been killed, most of them in airstrikes that have continued since Israeli troops began a ground invasion on Oct. 27.

Aid agencies have said that a four-day pause is far too little time to address the dire humanitarian situation in the enclave. Still, the agreement was supposed to see a large increase in humanitarian aid into Gaza. On Friday morning, a spokesman for the Rafah border crossing, Wael Abu Omar, said that 60 trucks carrying aid had entered Gaza from Egypt. Eight contained badly needed fuel and cooking gas, Israel said.

Just a few hours into the start of the agreement, it remained unclear whether the truce would hold. The history of Israeli-Hamas hostilities is filled with cease-fires that fell apart.

The agreement is for at least a four-day pause in hostilities. During that time, at least 50 women and children — from the roughly 240 people that Israeli officials say were abducted on Oct. 7 — were expected to be exchanged for 150 Palestinian women and minors imprisoned in Israeli jails.

The deal also includes an increase in humanitarian aid for Gaza, but Qatar’s foreign ministry did not release details. Hamas said Thursday that 200 trucks carrying relief supplies and four fuel trucks would enter the territory each day during the four-day pause. Israeli officials did not immediately comment.

Israel said its warplanes would not fly over southern Gaza for the duration of the cease-fire, and would not fly over the northern part of the territory for six hours each day.

How is it being carried out?

The pause had been scheduled to begin at 7 a.m. Gaza time (midnight Eastern) on Friday, Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman, Majed al-Ansari said Thursday, which Hamas confirmed. Mr. al-Ansari said a first group of 13 hostages would then be released starting at 4 p.m., in exchange for an undisclosed number of Palestinian prisoners.

In general, both Israel and Hamas have signaled that roughly 30 Palestinians will be exchanged for every 10 Israeli hostages.

Each day of the pause, Israel and Hamas will receive lists of the hostages and prisoners to be released, with Qatar passing them between the two parties, according to Mr. al-Ansari. He said that the International Committee of the Red Cross would be designated to receive the hostages, though he gave no further detail on the group’s role or where the hostages would cross the border.

The Israeli government has said that the hostages would be freed in four groups during the truce, each with at least 10 people.

An Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity on Wednesday said hostages turned over by Hamas would be taken to hospitals, and the seriously injured transported by helicopter. Those under 12 will be met at the border by their families, the official said, while older hostages will meet their families at hospitals, where they will also be debriefed by security services.

The official said the first Palestinians to be released from Israeli prisons will be allowed home only after the first tranche of Israeli hostages are freed.

Who are the Palestinian prisoners?

The Israeli government this week published a list of 300 names — all people 18 years old and younger or women — of Palestinian prisoners being considered for release. It was not immediately known who would be among the 150 to be released.

All the names on the list were described as “security prisoners,” or people who had been arrested in connection with offenses against national security. The prisoners are accused of offenses including supporting terrorism, acts of violence and throwing stones. There are also several charges of attempted murder. Most of the prisoners on the list had not been convicted of the charges.

There were 32 women and girls listed, including two 18-year-olds and a 15-year-old. Of the boys, 144 are 18 years old and 123 are between 14 and 17.

Who are the hostages being freed?

The Israeli prime minister’s office said it had received an initial list of names of the hostages who would be released and had contacted their families. It did not specify how many names were on that list.

At least 36 children and teenagers, ranging in age from infancy to the final year of high school, are being held in Gaza, and little is known about their whereabouts or well-being. Some, but perhaps not all, of them are expected to be among the hostages released in the coming days.

White House officials said on Tuesday that they expected the agreement to include the release of three Americans: two women and a toddler.

What happens after the cease-fire?

Israel has said that it will restart fighting after the truce ends and that it still intends to force Hamas from power in every part of Gaza. But some analysts say that it could prove difficult for Israel to regain momentum, particularly if Hamas dangles the possibility of further hostage deals — and if Israel’s partners push for a longer truce.

Patrick Kingsley contributed reporting.

The Israeli military said it had encircled the area by Thursday afternoon and later added that it had discovered six tunnel shafts during a raid on a compound on the outskirts of the neighborhood, including one inside a mosque. It said it had also uncovered combat equipment, including rocket launchers. Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, a military spokesman, called Jabaliya a “hot spot.”

Hamas, which launched an attack on Israel last month, has built a maze of hidden tunnels that some believe extend across most, if not all, of Gaza, the territory it controls. Dismantling the tunnels is a key part of Israel’s goal of wiping out Hamas’s leadership in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack.

Ameen Abed, a resident of Jabaliya, said in a phone interview on Thursday that more than 50 of his relatives and neighbors had been killed. The dead included an old friend whose body parts Mr. Abed said he had to collect.

“We no longer count martyrs,” Mr. Abed said, using the term that Arabic speakers employ to refer to those killed in war. “Northern Gaza is uninhabitable and unsafe.”

He said he had tried to flee the fighting on Monday, only to hear gunshots from snipers. He was taking shelter at a health center in Jabaliya along with thousands of others, and said he could hear heavy gunfire as the battles continued.

Mr. Abed said he received an Israeli call on Thursday warning him to leave the “battlefield” in the north, but he remained wary of moving south, anticipating that Israel would expand its ground operations there.

Fewer people have been leaving Gaza’s north, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which attributed the change to the expectation that a cease-fire was imminent. The office said that about 250 people had walked south on Wednesday, the lowest number since Israel began instructing Gazans to flee via a “corridor” on Salah al-Din Street.

Many people have been forced to travel on foot, and Mr. Abed said some of his relatives and neighbors, including children and older people, could not walk such distances. But those that remained in Jabaliya were desperate for food, medicines and cooking gas, he said.

“The hunger, the loss of loved ones and tiredness is eating people’s flesh,” he said. “People are dying slowly.”

Israel has allowed some aid to enter Gaza but has opposed fuel deliveries, saying that Hamas uses it for rocket attacks and has stockpiled fuel intended for civilians.

The Gazan Health Ministry put the death toll at more than 13,000 this week, including thousands of women and children.

The U.N. warned that the risk of severe dehydration and waterborne disease was rising in the near absence of fresh water in the north. An Israeli pipeline carrying water to the area remained shut off, and the local desalination plant still could not function without fuel, it said.

Aid groups say they have been unable to get access to the north to distribute bottled water. Bakeries have long ceased to operate, and wheat is reportedly scarce in markets. Livestock was facing starvation, and crops were increasingly being abandoned, the U.N. said.

There were also signs on Thursday that many Gazans who had fled to the south would try to return to their homes during a cease-fire. The Israeli army has said that residents would be barred from returning to the north during the pause and that it was preparing for the possibility of “disturbances” by residents who did try to return.

Israeli troops will remain in Gaza during the pause in fighting, the military said.

“We were so happy,” said Nagham Tanji, Walaa’s older sister. “My sisters and I could not wait for the sun to rise and for this day to come.”

The family was among many on both sides of the conflict that were hopeful after the announcement of a deal to release about 50 hostages held in Gaza and about 150 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, paired with a temporary cease-fire. Then came some delays, which dampened hopes. But on Thursday came an announcement that the exchange would begin on Friday — and that day the Palestinian Authority’s Commission for Prisoners’ Affairs confirmed that Walaa would be among the first 39 prisoners to be freed.

Speaking to The New York Times on Thursday, Ms. Tanji said: “Praise be to God, who made the deal happen. Patience is the key to relief. Now I want to start arranging again for her reception.”

Walaa Tanji, 26, was detained by Israel over a year ago at her home in the Balata refugee camp on the outskirts of Nablus, along with two other women. Israel’s military accused the three of planning an attack on an Israeli checkpoint and said it had found firearms in a car they were using. Ms. Tanji said that her sister was innocent and that she had yet to be charged or sentenced.

Even if Walaa had been released on Thursday, the reception would not have been possible.

Israeli forces started raiding the refugee camp early Thursday, and violent clashes erupted, killing one Palestinian and wounding three others, according to Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s news agency. The Israeli military has been carrying out nightly raids across the West Bank since the Hamas attack in Israel on Oct. 7, saying they are part of a counterterrorism operation to apprehend wanted Palestinians.

Ms. Tanji said that Walaa’s home was among those raided and severely damaged by Israeli forces. “We can’t think about the prisoner release deal now because of the horror we have been living since the raid started,” she said.

The agreement reached by Israel and Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, would also grant people in the enclave at least four days of calm after a relentless Israeli bombardment that health officials say has killed over 12,000 Palestinians. The bombing began in retaliation for the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7 that Israel says killed about 1,200 people.

Thirty-nine prisoners were set to be freed on Friday, the first day of exchanges. They include Rawan Abu Ziadeh, 29, who has been in an Israeli prison for over eight years.

“The wait has been very tough,” her older sister, Buthaina Abu Ziadeh, told The Times on Thursday. “When she comes out, I just want to hug her and hold her tight.”

Rawan Abu Ziadeh, who is from the village of Baytillu near Ramallah, was arrested in 2015 at the age of 20 and is serving a nine-year sentence after she was convicted of stabbing and lightly wounding an Israeli soldier.

Ms. Abu Ziadeh said the family had not been expecting Rawan to be on the list because she was set to be released in seven months: “She basically served her entire sentence, even if she is released now.”

The long-awaited reunion would not be what the family had hoped for, said Ms. Abu Ziadeh. “We’ve been eagerly awaiting this day,” she said. “But the joy will be incomplete because of all the pain in Gaza.”

Before the attack, Ms. Idan was focused on her three children and the solar-panel cleaning company that she runs with her husband in northern Israel. But on that day, her husband’s brother Roy Idan, 43, and his wife, Smadar Idan, 38, were fatally shot at the Kfar Azza kibbutz. Ms. Idan’s life’s mission now is to raise Avigail’s siblings — Michael, 9, and Amelia, 6, both of whom survived the violence — and to help bring their sister home.

“I have a 3-year-old niece who has no parents anymore,” she said. “I’m her voice now.”

As Israelis and Palestinians wait anxiously for the implementation of a temporary cease-fire deal — in which Israel would swap 150 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the return of 50 kidnapped Israelis — Avigail’s family feels hope that she could be among the hostages freed. White House officials said on Tuesday that they expect the agreement to include the release of three Americans: two women and a toddler. Avigail, whose name has also been spelled “Abigail” in the U.S. media, is a dual Israeli and U.S. citizen.

On her trip to the United States last week, Ms. Idan met with journalists in New York and lawmakers in Washington, including Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Representative Ro Khanna of California. “I wanted them to know: How does it feel to wake up one morning and to realize you’re in hell,” she said.

A day after the hostage deal was announced, Ms. Idan was at home with her family, feeling anxious. “I find myself barely breathing through the last 24 hours,” she said. “Every hour that goes by feels like forever.”

On the morning of Oct. 7, as terrorists swarmed the kibbutz, Smadar Idan was shot in front of her children, Ms. Idan said she was told by Michael and Amelia. Roy Idan was outside the house, holding Avigail in his arms. As Michael and Amelia ran to their father, they watched him get shot and killed while holding their sister. They assumed she was dead too and raced back into their home.

Covered in her father’s blood, Avigail ran toward a neighbor, her aunt said. The man brought Avigail into his home to hide with his wife and children and then left the house to find a gun. “Ten minutes later, when he got back, all were gone,” Ms. Idan said.

After 14 hours of hiding in a closet, with their mother’s body on the other side of a fabric partition, Michael and Amelia were rescued by an Israeli soldier and brought to Ms. Idan’s husband, Amit, she said.

“They are not OK,” Ms. Idan said of Michael and Amelia. “They hear the wind blow, and they are shaking.”

But, she added, “they are survivors and heroes,” as is their sister.

“To be able to escape herself out of her father’s hands and to run away for life and to manage to rescue herself with nobody else out there — that’s amazing,” said Ms. Idan said of Avigail. “She’s a hero. But there is a long way for us. First of all, she needs to be back home. She needs to be with her brother and sister. That’s the only thing that’s left for her.”

Hamas killed 1,200 people and abducted about 240 in Israel during the surprise attack on Oct. 7, according to the Israeli authorities. Hamas officials have said one of the objectives of the attack was to win the release of some of the thousands of Palestinians jailed in Israel, many of them accused of violence against Israeli soldiers and civilians. Many Palestinians say such violence is legitimate resistance to Israel’s decades-long occupation of the West Bank and repeated military campaigns in Gaza.

Israeli governments have long been determined to bring back captured civilians and soldiers — even at steep costs. The terms of prisoner swaps have often prompted fierce criticism domestically, much as the latest hostage release deal did within Israel’s governing coalition.

Here are some of the most significant prisoner swaps in Israel’s history:

• 2011: Israel released more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for a lone Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Hamas in Gaza in 2006. The decision followed years of campaigning by Mr. Shalit’s family for his freedom. One of the Palestinians freed in the deal, Yahya Sinwar, eventually became Hamas’s leader in Gaza and, according to Israeli officials, and a mastermind of the Oct. 7 attacks.

• 2003: The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah exchanged a kidnapped former Israeli colonel and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers killed during a cross-border raid for over 400 prisoners held in Israel and nearly 60 bodies.

• 1985: The Israeli government traded over 1,100 Palestinian prisoners — including some convicted of perpetrating or masterminding attacks on Israelis — for three Israeli soldiers captured during the First Lebanon War. Some of those released eventually became senior militant leaders, including Ziad al-Nakhaleh, the current head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.