For more than days, Israeli and American and Palestinian families have been waiting - waiting for family members and loved ones to come home to them.
Now with the ceasefire in Gaza holding so far, prisoner-for-hostage exchanges are underway. The International Committee of the Red Cross helps facilitate these swaps, and here to talk through how they work and how they're going is Jacob Kurtzer, spokesman for the Red Cross and on the line from Tel Aviv. Is that right? Our role in the ongoing agreement is to implement the agreement that the parties themselves signed.
In all these matters, our job is to act at the request of the parties and to facilitate the safe release and transfer of both the hostages and the detainees. How many have you been working with, and how has it been going?
KURTZER: Since the most recent ceasefire agreement has been signed, there have been two hostage release efforts - the first in which three people were released and transferred by our colleagues back to their homes, and the second in which four people were released and transferred to their homes.
The situation in Gaza - many of the roads have been destroyed. There is an expectation that there still remains unexploded ordnance around. We know that these individuals have experienced a lot of trauma and so we always make sure, to the best of our abilities, that we have doctors on hand who can apply any necessary immediate medical care. And we consider the fact that when they see us, it can be a very difficult moment for them. As you nod to, in such a fast-moving situation, you must be having to adjust on the fly when you get there and the conditions are not what you thought they were going to be.
