Hostages who were abducted by Hamas gunmen during the October 7 attack on Israel [Source: Reuters]

Thirteen Israelis and four Thai nationals arrived in Israel on Sunday in the second release of hostages from Hamas captivity in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in a deal briefly endangered by a dispute about aid delivery into Gaza.

Although overcome by the mediation of Egypt and Qatar, the dispute that threatened the truce to free captives underscored the fragility of the pact meant to release 50 hostages held by the Palestinian militant groups and 150 prisoners held in Israeli jails over four days.

Television images showed hostages on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing after leaving Gaza, as Hamas handed the captives to the International Committee of the Red Cross late on Saturday.

Six of the 13 Israelis released were women and seven were children and teenagers.

Israel released 39 Palestinians – six women and 33 minors – from two prisons, the Palestinian news agency WAFA said.

Some of the Palestinians arrived at Al-Bireh Municipality Square in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where thousands of citizens awaited them, a Reuters witness said.

A Palestinian official familiar with the diplomatic moves said Hamas would continue the truce, the first halt in fighting since Hamas fighters rampaged through southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages.

In response to that attack, Israel has vowed to destroy the Hamas militants who run Gaza, raining bombs and shells on the enclave and launching a ground offensive in the north. Some 14,800 people, roughly 40% of them children, have been killed, Palestinian health authorities said on Saturday.

Saturday’s swap follows the previous day’s initial release of 13 Israeli hostages, including children and the elderly, by Hamas in return for the release of 39 Palestinian women and young people from Israeli prisons.

On Friday Hamas also released a Philippine national and 10 Thai farm workers.

The four Thais released on Saturday “want a shower and to contact their relatives”, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said a day later on social media platform X, adding that all were safe and showed few ill-effects.

Eighteen Thais remain captive, Thailand’s foreign ministry said on Sunday.

The deal risked being derailed when Hamas’ armed wing said on Saturday it was delaying releases until Israel met all truce conditions, including committing to let aid trucks into northern Gaza.

Ensuring that the deal did not collapse took a day of high-stakes diplomacy mediated by Qatar and Egypt, a process U.S. President Joe Biden joined, calling Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

Hamas spokesperson Osama Hamdan said only 65 of 340 aid trucks that had entered Gaza since Friday had reached northern Gaza, which was “less than half of what Israel agreed on”.

Al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas armed wing, also said Israel had failed to respect terms for the release of Palestinian prisoners that factored in their time in detention.

The IDF said the United Nations and international organisations distribute aid inside the Gaza Strip. The U.N. said 61 trucks delivered aid to northern Gaza on Saturday, the most since the war began seven weeks ago. They included food, water and emergency medical supplies.

Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said there had been “a lot of discussion” on how and whom to prioritise for release and that a key criterion for the Palestinian side was the length of time spent in Israeli prisons.

Israel has said the ceasefire could be extended if Hamas continued to release at least 10 hostages a day. A Palestinian source has said up to 100 hostages could go free.