Hamas freed three more Israeli hostages on Saturday in a ceremony marked by some of the same provocative theatrics used by the Palestinian militants in previous releases.
It was the sixth round of a tense series of hostage-for-prisoner exchanges that are part of a 42-day cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas that went into effect last month. Hamas agreed to incrementally release 33 of the nearly 100 people who were taken in October 2023 and have still not been accounted for. In exchange, Israel is to free more than 1,000 Palestinians held in its jails and partially withdraw from Gaza.
Here’s a closer look at the three civilian male hostages, including an Israeli American, who were released on Saturday:
Sagui Dekel-Chen
Mr. Dekel-Chen, an Israeli American who had played for Israel’s national basketball team, was 35 when he was taken from Nir Oz, a kibbutz in southern Israel close to the Gaza border where militants abducted more than 70 people in the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
He is a father of three, and his youngest child was born during his captivity. Mr. Dekel-Chen worked as national coordinator for the British branch of the Jewish National Fund and with his wife, he converted buses for new uses, such as for mobile classrooms.
Mr. Dekel-Chen’s family was very active in advocating a cease-fire deal. His father, Jonathan Dekel-Chen, a history professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times critical of the Israeli government for not bringing home the hostages.
In August, he told the Times that he and other members of the Nir Oz kibbutz would not participate in an official government ceremony then being planned to commemorate the Oct. 7 attack. He said they were “appalled by the idea of this government creating a ceremony that would distract from their culpability.”
The hostage’s mother, Neomit Dekel-Chen, and some neighbors were also captured in the Oct. 7 attack. She escaped from an electric cart that was heading toward Gaza when an Israeli military helicopter shot at the militants, according to an account she gave to Israeli news media.
Mr. Horn was 45 when he was abducted from Nir Oz along with one of his two brothers, Eitan, who was visiting for the weekend. Iair worked in construction and Eitan worked as a teacher.
Mr. Horn was born in Israel and raised in Argentina. He returned to Israel as an adult along with his parents and siblings, according to their mother, Ruth Strom. They are part of a large Argentine community on the kibbutz, including other families awaiting the return of hostages.
Eitan Horn has not been slated for release in the first phase of the deal, and Ms. Strom has said that she was anxious that Iair would have to leave his brother behind.
Their father, Itzik Horn, said in December 2023, after the Israeli military mistakenly shot and killed three hostages who had fled their captors in Gaza, that Israel must reach a deal even if it means freeing prisoners designated as terrorists.
“The most important thing isn’t to defeat Hamas,” he said in an interview. “The only victory here is to bring back all the hostages.”
Mr. Troufanov, a Russian Israeli dual citizen who was 27 when he was captured, was visiting family in Nir Oz on Oct. 7. His father was killed, and his mother, grandmother and girlfriend were taken hostage but released during the cease-fire in November 2023.
Mr. Troufanov, who lived with his girlfriend in a Tel Aviv suburb and worked at a company owned by Amazon, was seen in a video released by Palestinian Islamic Jihad — the second most powerful militant group in Gaza after Hamas — in November of last year. He appeared weary, with an untrimmed beard and bags under his eyes, and spoke of a lack of food and water.
In October, Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, told Russia Today that he had spoken to Islamic Jihad about Mr. Troufanov and that Hamas would give priority to him in any exchange of hostages and Palestinian prisoners “in honor” of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
Content Source: www.nytimes.com