Israelis held captive in Gaza and Palestinians swept into Israel detention centres have been the focus of ceasefire talks.
Israeli authorities have said that there are no remaining captives left in Gaza after they received the remains of police officer Ran Gvili, fulfilling a key component of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
The plight of Israeli and Palestinian captives has been a focus of ceasefire talks, with hundreds of people taken captive by Palestinian fighters during the October 7, 2023 attacks and subsequent waves of detentions of Palestinians by Israeli forces.
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The return of the captives held in Gaza became an issue of particular resonance in Israel during the two-year Israel-Palestine war, causing a schism between protesters who pushed for a negotiated deal to secure their release and hardliners in the government who prioritised pushing forward with the destruction of Gaza.
Palestinians detained by Israel have been held in prisons and detention facilities where rights groups have reported that torture, sexual assault, and other severe abuses are systematic and widespread.
Here’s a brief timeline of developments regarding Palestinian and Israeli captives over the last several years.
2023
October: Palestinian fighters carry out an attack on communities across southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking 251 Israeli and foreign captives, according to Israeli figures. In the following weeks, Hamas releases two Israeli-American captives and two elderly captives, and Israeli forces recover an Israeli soldier taken captive during the attack.
November: A deal is reached between Israel and Hamas that will result in the largest release of captives until the 2025 ceasefire deal, with 81 Israeli women and children and 24 foreign captives released. The agreement includes a slight increase in humanitarian aid entering Gaza, choked off by Israel in defiance of international law, and the release of 240 Palestinian women and teenage detainees and prisoners held by Israel, many of them being held without charge.
December: Israeli forces in Gaza shoot and kill three Israeli captives holding a white flag and attempting to be rescued, underscoring the lax rules around the use of force by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip.
2024
February: Israeli forces recover two captives during a raid in southern Gaza as protesters in Israel call for a deal to bring the remaining captives home.
June: Israeli forces conduct a raid in the Nuseirat neighbourhood of central Gaza to recover four captives, accompanied by indiscriminate bombing and attacks in the surrounding area that kill at least 274 Palestinians.
July: A report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights finds that Israel is holding about 9,400 Palestinians as “security detainees”, often without giving them a reason for their detention, in facilities where abuses such as torture and sexual assault are widespread.
August: The discovery of six dead Israeli captives in a Hamas tunnel in southern Gaza sparks anger in Israel and mounting pressure on the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a deal to secure the release of the remaining captives. The Israeli leader is accused of sabotaging negotiations on several occasions in order to continue the war. A video is released of several Israeli security force members gang-raping a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman detention facility in Israel, notorious for abuse and torture.
December: United States President-elect Donald Trump says there will be “hell to pay” if remaining captives are not released before his inauguration on January 20, 2025. Israeli forces detain Doctor Hussam Abu Safia, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, keeping him imprisoned without charge or trial. His lawyers later say he is tortured in Israeli detention, where he remains despite international calls for his release.
2025
January: A ceasefire deal is reached for the release of 33 Israeli captives, 25 of them living and eight dead, and hundreds of Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons. Under the deal, a second phase of negotiations is supposed to lead to the release of the remaining captives and Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, but Netanyahu unilaterally breaks off the agreement and resumes the war after six weeks. Hamas additionally releases five Thai workers who were among those taken captive by Palestinian fighters on October 7, 2023.
February: Israel releases 600 Palestinian detainees after a delay, while Hamas releases Israeli-American Keith Siegel, Israeli-French Ofer Calderon, and Yarden Bibas, along with six other captives. The group later releases six more captives, and returns the bodies of Ariel and Kfir Bibas, who were aged four years and nine months respectively when kidnapped, along with their mother, Shiri Bibas, and a man in his 80s named Oded Lifshitz. The fate of the family causes anguish and anger in Israel and the UN condemns the “abhorrent” treatment of captives and their remains by Hamas.
March: Israel breaks the ceasefire and resumes the war with a wave of bombings and attacks across Gaza that kill at least 404 Palestinians in the first day, many of them children.
May: Hamas hands over Israeli-American Edan Alexander, the last surviving US captive held in Gaza.
October: A ceasefire agreement is reached between Hamas and Israel to secure the release of the remaining captives and the remains of the deceased held in Gaza, and Palestinian detainees and prisoners held by Israel. Israel releases the bodies of more than 100 dead Palestinians, most of whom are unidentified and many showing signs of torture, and continues to regularly bomb Gaza and restrict the flow of humanitarian aid.
November: The rights group Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI) releases a report stating that at least 94 Palestinians have died in Israeli detention from causes such as torture, medical neglect, malnutrition, and assault. The report states that the true number is likely higher.
2026
January: Central Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital says it received nine living Palestinian detainees released by Israel, shortly after the military said it had recovered the body of the last captive held in the Palestinian territory.
