Hamas releases two more hostages amid tension of ground invasion

Hamas on Monday released two elderly Israeli women held hostage in Gaza as the United States expressed increasing concern that the escalating Israel-Hamas war will spark a wider conflict in the region, including attacks on American troops.

The two freed hostages, 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz and 79-year-old Nurit Cooper, were taken out of Gaza at the Rafah crossing into Egypt, where they were put into ambulances, according to footage shown on Egyptian TV.

The two women, along with their husbands, were snatched from their homes in the kibbutz of Nir Oz near the Gaza border during Hamas’ Oct. 7 rampage into southern Israeli communities. Their husbands, ages 83 and 84, were not released.

“While I cannot put into words the relief that she is now safe, I will remain focused on securing the release of my father and all those — some 200 innocent people — who remain hostages in Gaza,” Lifshitz’ daughter, Sharone Lifschitz, said in a statement.

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Lifschitz, an artist and academic in London who uses a different spelling for her name, told reporters last week that her parents were peace activists, and her father would drive to the Gaza border to take Palestinians to east Jerusalem for medical treatment.

Hamas apparently received nothing in exchange for the release of the two hostages, who were freed days after an American woman and her teenage daughter were also freed. Hamas and other militants in Gaza are believed to have taken roughly 220 people, including an unconfirmed number of foreigners and dual citizens.

On Monday, Hamas released a video showing the handover of the two elderly hostages, with militants giving drinks and snacks to the dazed but composed women, and holding their hands as they walked to Red Cross officials. Just before the video ends, Lifshitz reaches back to shake one militant’s hand.

Around the same time, Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, released a recording showing a series of prisoners from the Hamas attack — most in clean prison uniforms, but one in a bloody t-shirt and at least one wincing in pain — sitting handcuffed in drab offices talking about the Oct. 7 attack. The men said they were under orders to kill young men, and kidnap women, children and the elderly, and that they’d been promised financial rewards.

The videos were both clearly intended to shape the war’s narrative — with Israel focusing on Hamas’ brutality, and Hamas trying to show a humane side.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas. Iranian-backed fighters around the region are warning of possible escalation, including the targeting of U.S. forces deployed in the Mideast, if a ground offensive is launched in Gaza.

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The U.S. has told Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and other groups not to join the fight. Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire almost daily across the Israel-Lebanon border, and Israeli warplanes have struck targets in the occupied West Bank, Syria and Lebanon in recent days.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed — mostly civilians slain during the initial Hamas attack. At least 222 people were captured and dragged back to Gaza, including foreigners, the military said Monday, updating a previous figure.

More than 5,000 Palestinians, including some 2,000 minors and around 1,100 women, have been killed, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Monday. That includes the disputed toll from an explosion at a hospital last week. The toll has climbed rapidly in recent days, with the ministry reporting 436 additional deaths in just the last 24 hours.

Israel said its forces had struck over 400 militant targets over the last day, killing several Hamas commanders and dozens of fighters preparing to fire rockets into Israel.

Israel says it does not target civilians, and that Palestinian militants have fired over 7,000 rockets at Israel since the start of the war. But inside Gaza, the civilian death toll continued to mount.