NANTUCKET, Massachusetts — A 4-year-old American girl captured after seeing her parents slain by Hamas fighters who stormed southern Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7 was among 17 hostages released on Sunday as part of an Israeli-Hamas prisoner exchange, President Joseph R. Biden said.

Abigail Edan, who turned four while in captivity, became the third person with US citizenship freed by Hamas during seven weeks of bloodshed between the Iranian-backed Palestinian militia that controls the Gaza Strip and the Israeli military.

Relatives told CBS News last week the toddler, in the event that she were released, would go to stay with family members in Israel who have already taken in her two older siblings.

Abigail, a dual Israeli citizen, was freed as part of a deal to swap 50 hostages held by the Palestinian militant group for 150 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails over a four-day truce period.

It was the first halt in the conflict since Hamas launched its surprise cross-border raid on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages, according to Israeli officials. Hamas characterizes its armed activities as resistance against Israeli occupation.

In response, Israel vowed to destroy the Hamas militants who run Israeli-occupied Gaza, bombarding the crowded coastal enclave and mounting a ground offensive in the north. Palestinian health authorities say Israel has killed some 14,800 people, roughly 40% of them children.

Mr. Biden said the toddler had witnessed Hamas fighters killing her parents during the Oct. 7 raid and had been held captive since then. “What she endured is unthinkable,” the president told a news conference.

“We hoped and prayed today would come,” Liz Hirsh Naftali and Noa Naftali, Edan’s great aunt and cousin, said in a statement, thanking Mr. Biden and the Qatari government for their work in getting Abigail released. “There are no words to express our relief and gratitude that Abigail is safe and coming home.”

Mr. Biden spoke with members of the girl’s family in the United States and Israel after her release, the White House said in a statement.

FROM CAPTIVITY TO RELATIVES IN ISRAEL
Noa Naftali had said in a CBS News interview last week that if Abigail were released she would go to stay with an aunt, uncle and grandparents living in Israel.

Her siblings were already there, Noa Naftali said, and the family can provide “the love and support that they need after losing their parents.”

Abigail was on her way to a hospital for medical examination, Israel’s Channel 13 reported on Sunday.

Her grandfather, Carmel Edan, told Reuters he “simply could not believe” she had been returned, thanking President Biden “for all the help he’s offered us.”

According to Noa Naftali, Abigail had been held captive in Gaza with neighbors also taken from the Kfar Aza kibbutz, where the toddler, her parents and her siblings lived.

Abigail’s mother was killed in front of the girl and her two older siblings, Noa Naftali said, adding that Abigail then ran outside to her father, who picked her up but was “gunned down while holding her.”

Abigail “crawled out from underneath him and went over to the neighbors, who took her in, and they were also taken hostage — a mother, a 10-year-old, an 8-year old and a 4-year old who goes to preschool with Abigail,” Noa Naftali said.

She told CBS that Abigail’s older siblings, aged 6 and 10, escaped by locking themselves inside a closet for 14 hours.

Hamas said it handed over 17 hostages on Sunday, including Abigail and four other foreign nationals, and Israel freed 39 Palestinian prisoners in return.

Two other Americans with dual Israeli citizenship, Judith Tai Raanan, 59, and her daughter Natalie, 17, were freed by Hamas on Oct. 20, becoming the first captives whose release by Hamas was confirmed by both sides in the conflict.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a call with Mr. Biden on Sunday thanked him for his “tireless efforts to help broker and fully implement” the deal to release hostages, according to a White House readout of the call.

The two leaders agreed to continue working to secure the release of all hostages, the White House said, and would “remain in close contact over the coming days.”

Mr. Biden said he expects Hamas to release other US hostages as well, and that he wants the pause in the fighting to be extended as long as prisoners are being released.

“We will not stop working until every hostage is returned to their loved ones,” Mr. Biden said. — Reuters

SEOUL — North Korea warned on Monday it would continue to exercise its sovereign rights, including through satellite launches, while its troops were reported to be restoring some demolished guard posts on the border with South Korea.

North Korea’s foreign ministry said the launch of a reconnaissance satellite last week was prompted by the need to monitor the United States and its allies, state media KCNA reported.

“It is a legal and just way to exercise its right to defend itself and thoroughly respond to and precisely monitor the serious military action by the US and its followers,” the KCNA report said.

Nuclear-armed North Korea launched the satellite on Tuesday, saying it successfully entered orbit and was transmitting photographs, but South Korean defense officials and analysts said its capabilities have not been independently verified.

The launch prompted South Korea to suspend a key clause in a 2018 inter-Korean military agreement and resume aerial surveillance near the border.

North Korea in turn declared it was no longer bound by the agreement and would deploy weapons on the border with the South.

South Korea’s defense ministry said North Korean soldiers had been observed bringing back heavy weapons into the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) border and setting up guard posts that the two countries demolished under the agreement.

South Korea estimates the North had about 160 guard posts along the DMZ and the South had 60. Each side demolished 11 of them after the military deal signed in 2018 aimed at de-escalating tension and preventing accident military clashes.

Armed North Korean soldiers had been spotted restoring damaged guard posts in several locations since Friday, South Korea’s defense ministry said, citing photographs from cameras in the DMZ.

They were also setting up what appeared to be a recoilless rifle — a portable anti-vehicle weapon or light artillery piece — at a fortification, it said, also citing a photograph.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un again visited the control center of the space agency in Pyongyang on Monday morning and viewed fresh satellite photos of the United States’ Anderson Air Force base in Guam and other places including Rome, KCNA reported.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was briefed on the latest North Korean activities and ordered military readiness, his office said.

The United States had called an unscheduled meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Monday to discuss the North’s satellite launch.

On Nov. 22, nine members of the Security Council joined the United States in a statement condemning the North’s satellite launch for using ballistic missile technology, calling it a violation of multiple Security Council resolutions.

North Korea’s foreign ministry said the statement only showed how dysfunctional the Security Council had become, with some member states blindly following the United States in issuing meaningless statements.

Two of the veto-wielding permanent members, China and Russia, have refused to join in any new Security Council sanctions against Pyongyang despite its continued testing of increasingly powerful ballistic missiles.

They did not join in the most recent statement last week. — Reuters