Set them all free, Hamas told as both sides put down arms for four days

BRITAIN appealed today for the release of every hostage taken by Hamas from southern Israel as a four-day ceasefire took hold, offering some respite from seven weeks of bloody war in Gaza.

- Jitendra Joshi

One London woman, Sharone Lifschitz, said that her 83-year-old hostage father would insist that others seized by the Palestinian militants from their kibbutz in southern Israel on October 7 should be released before him.

"My father spent 65 years building this community - we grew up collectively as children in my generation. If there is a queue, he is fighting to be at the back of the queue," Ms Lifschitz told BBC Breakfast from Tel Aviv, where she has been caring for her mother following her own release late last month.

Breaking down in tears, the Walthamstow artist added that every hostage who was released was a "ray of light" in a "long and horrendous story". But she pointed out that some would emerge not knowing that their relatives had been murdered in the Hamas raid.

Hamas pledged to free at least 50 of the estimated 240 hostages that it and other terrorists took on October 7, when they massacred 1,200 people in an attack targeting kibbutzim, a music festival and Israeli border guards. Israel was expected to free 150 Palestinian prisoners, with women and children the first to come out on both sides.