Latest Middle East News
Who are the Palestinian prisoners released in exchange for Israeli hostages?
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The release of four female Israeli soldiers from Hamas captivity on Saturday came at a heavy cost for Israel. Israel released 200 Palestinian prisoners, 120 of them serving life sentences, from its jails as part of a ceasefire deal. They ranged in age...
Hamas frees 4 female Israeli soldiers in exchange for 200 Palestinian prisoners as ceasefire holds
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Four female Israeli soldiers who were taken in the attack that sparked the war in Gaza returned to Israel on Saturday after Hamas militants paraded them before a crowd of thousands in Gaza City and handed them over to the Red Cross. Israel later released 200 Palestinian...
Here's what happens next during the ceasefire in Gaza
The first week of the latest ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas militant group is complete. Hamas has begun to release hostages and Israel has freed nearly 300 Palestinian prisoners. But the deal has hit its first major complication. Israel on Saturday said that a female civilian...
With the ceasefire in Gaza comes a gruesome challenge: Counting and collecting the dead
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The corpses keep coming every day, sometimes dozens at a time, brought to morgues in the Gaza Strip after being pried from under 15 months of rubble and pulled from battle zones long too dangerous for search-and-rescue teams to reach. These bodies,...
Mexican sailor returns home to festivities after 14 months in Houthi rebel captivity
MISANTLA, Mexico (AP) — Escorted by locals on bicycles and in cars that awaited his arrival outside his hometown in Mexico, Arturo Zacarías Meza returned home days after Houthi rebels in Yemen released him and his fellow crew members following more than a year in captivity. In...
Middle East latest: 4 Israeli women soldiers will be next hostages freed from Gaza
The second batch of Israeli hostages set to be released by Hamas this weekend are four female soldiers, an advocacy group representing the captives' family members confirmed Friday. Hamas had announced the names hours earlier. Under the terms of the fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire...
Desperate families await return of 4 female soldiers held by Hamas for 15 months
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Hamas announced Friday that it would release four female soldiers held hostage for 15 months in Gaza, as part of an exchange for dozens of Palestinian prisoners laid out in its ceasefire agreement with Israel. An advocacy group representing the families of hostages...
US Air Force looks to upgrade Cyprus airbase as humanitarian staging post for the Middle East
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Experts from the U.S. Air Force are looking at ways to upgrade Cyprus’ premier air base for use as a humanitarian staging post in future operations in the Middle East, a Cypriot official told The Associated Press Thursday. Cyprus, which is only 184...
Freedom is bittersweet for Palestinians released from Israeli jails
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — When Dania Hanatsheh was released from an Israeli jail this week and dropped off by bus into a sea of jubilant Palestinians in Ramallah, it was an uncomfortable déjà vu. After nearly five months of detention, it was the second time the 22-year-old woman...
How the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal will unfold — and why it is so precarious
CAIRO (AP) — Israeli troops have pulled back to the edges of Gaza, the first hostages have been released and many Palestinians have returned to what remains of their homes in the first few days of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal. If it goes according to plan, there will be no...
