Thai PM says 12 Thai hostages released by Hamas

BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) - Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said that 12 Thai hostages kidnapped by Palestinian militants during Hamas's October 7 raids into Israel were released on Friday, hours after a truce in the Israel-Hamas war began.

On the other hand, the Hamas-run government in Gaza has released a list of 39 Palestinians released from the custody of the Israeli authorities.

After 48 days of gunfire and bombardment that claimed thousands of lives, a four-day truce in the Israel-Hamas war began on Friday with hostages set to be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

The pause triggered a mass movement of thousands of Gazans who had sought refuge in schools and hospitals from relentless Israeli bombardment begun after unprecedented attacks on October 7 by Hamas militants.

"I'm going home," Omar Jibrin, 16, told AFP after he emerged from a hospital in the south of the Gaza Strip where he and eight family members had sought refuge.

In Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza where many Palestinians fled, a cacophony of car horns and ambulance sirens has replaced the sound of war.

For Khaled al-Halabi, the truce is "a chance to breathe" after nearly seven weeks of war that began when Hamas broke through Gaza's militarised border to kill, according to Israeli officials, about 1,200 people and seize around 240 Israeli and foreign hostages.

Halabi had taken refuge in Rafah but is from Gaza City in the north, much of which has been reduced to rubble.