‘We send you and your families a huge embrace. This is a day of joy and comfort, and the beginning of a challenging journey of recovery and healing together’
WND By David Brummer
JERUSALEM – After 471 days of Hamas captivity, three now former female hostages were finally released to Israel’s military and taken to a specially assembled medical facility for an initial check before being taken on to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, where doctors will perform a more through examination on them, ahead of being reunited with their families.
They’re home. 💛 pic.twitter.com/PHkJ3yZLrV
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) January 19, 2025
The International Committee of the Red Cross – which has done nothing to attempt to visit these or any other hostages, even as it supposed to transfer medical supplies in late 2023, delivered the young women to the IDF and to the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet).
There was high drama and theater at the hand over, as thousands of mostly Gazan men crowded the streets. Many were now fully decked out in their Hamas military fatigues, no longer in need of hiding out in tunnels and houses in their t-shirts, Adidas sweatpants and sandals.
The sight was indeed a galling one; for months the Western media has wanted to be hoodwinked about the levels of deprivation in the Strip, and here were thousands of people looking well-fed and with fully-charged cell phones, hardly the so-called victims of a supposed genocide.
Meanwhile, in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, thousands of people thronged the space, watching in stunned disbelief as the first images of the girls – sitting in a van and surrounded by heavily armed men – emerged.
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, in a news conference, says former hostages Romi Gonen, Emily Damari, and Doron Steinbrecher “are now in safe hands.”
“They are in our hands. They are coming home,” he said.
מצורף תיעוד של משפחות השבות צופות ברגעי החבירה לכוח צה״ל pic.twitter.com/TwLuIxBlaf
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) January 19, 2025
Outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden couldn’t resist one more attempt at stealing the limelight, giving what will likely prove his last address from the Oval Office, at the news of the hostages’ release. When a reporter asked him if he had any concerns about Hamas regrouping, he replied with a curt, “No.” It was an appropriate bookend to a career in which he has been wrong about almost every foreign policy debate he has weighed in on.
Reporter: “Any concerns about Hamas regrouping?”
Biden: “No.”
Demented and delusional. What a travesty of a world leader.
— The Persian Jewess (@persianjewess) January 19, 2025
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog spoke for a nation when he said everyone rejoiced at the released hostages’ return.
“We send you and your families a huge embrace. This is a day of joy and comfort, and the beginning of a challenging journey of recovery and healing together.”
Romi, Emily, and Doron – so beloved and missed – an entire nation rejoices at your return.
We send you and your families a huge embrace. This is a day of joy and comfort, and the beginning of a challenging journey of recovery and healing together.
“The eyes weep bitterly,…
— יצחק הרצוג Isaac Herzog (@Isaac_Herzog) January 19, 2025
