Hamas Releases two Israeli Hostages

Hamas late on Monday released video showing its members handing over two elderly Israeli women it held hostage in Gaza to the International Red Cross.

The footage shows masked men escorting 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz and 79-year-old Nurit Cooper before they are helped away by the aid workers.

At one point, just before being led away by the Red Cross team, Lifshitz can be seen grabbing the hand of one of the masked men and telling him "Shalom".

The women, along with their husbands, were snatched from their homes in the kibbutz of Nir Oz near the Gaza border during Hamas’ rampage into southern Israel.

Their husbands, ages 83 and 84, were not released.

Footage from Egyptian TV showed Lifshitz and Cooper later being taken through the Rafah crossing from Gaza into Egypt.

The chief nurse at a hospital in Tel Aviv said the women had been reunited with their families at the facility and that they were in a safe medical condition.