Two young children of a Portuguese father were among the 17 hostages released on Saturday by Hamas, a Portuguese Foreign Ministry source confirmed this Sunday to Lusa, originally reported by CNN Portugal.
According to the Portuguese TV channel, which in turn confirmed the information of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz together with the Comunidade Israelita do Porto (CIP), the two minors are the children of Dror Or, a Jew of Sephardic origin and therefore the recipient of Portuguese citizenship, obtained after being kidnapped by a Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
Alma, 13, and Noam Or, 17, were kidnapped along with their father after Hamas entered Israel on October 7. On the same day, the young people’s mother was killed.
Dror Or, 48, remains among the Hamas hostages.
Along with Dror, Alma and Noam Or was Liam Or, 18, Dror’s nephew and who also remains a Hamas hostage.
After Adina Moshe, a Portuguese-Israeli woman, this is another liberation associated with Portugal.
On Friday afternoon, Portuguese Foreign Minister João Gomes Cravinho said that of the criteria set for the release of hostages taken by Hamas – giving priority to women and children – “ultimately there will be a person” who can be “released in the coming days”, but the Portuguese government did not yet have guarantees in this regard.
The four-day truce took effect at 7am Friday (5am in Lisbon) after more than a month and a half of war as part of an agreement to release 50 Israeli hostages in exchange for 150 Palestinian prisoners.
The truce even came under threat after Hamas said Israel was not fulfilling its part of the obligations, but the intervention of Egypt and Qatar helped unblock the situation.
War broke out when Hamas members invaded southern Israel, killing at least 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking hostages, including infants, women and the elderly, as well as soldiers.
Israeli bombing, now in its seventh week, has killed more than 14,500 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip Health Ministry.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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