Hamas militants have freed an American woman and her teenage daughter who had been held hostage in the Gaza Strip, following a deal reportedly brokered by the Qatari government.
Judith Raanan and her 17-year-old daughter Natalie are out of the Gaza Strip and in the hands of the Israeli military, an army spokesman confirmed on Friday night.
Hamas said it had released them for humanitarian reasons in an agreement with the Qatari government. They still hold dozens of captives.
The pair, who also hold Israeli citizenship, were the first hostages to be released, of more than 200 people militant group Hamas abducted during its October 7 rampage through southern Israel.
It comes amid growing expectations of a ground offensive that Israel says is aimed at rooting out Hamas militants who rule the Gaza Strip.
Judith and Natalie Ranaan had been visiting Israel on a trip from their home in suburban Chicago to celebrate the Jewish holidays, their family said.
They were in the kibbutz of Nahal Oz, near Gaza, on October 7 - Simchat Torah, a festive Jewish holiday - when Hamas fighters stormed out of the territory into southern Israeli towns, killing hundreds and abducting 203 others.
The family heard nothing from them after the attack and were later told by US and Israeli officials that they were being held in Gaza, Natalie's brother Ben said.
Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, said the hostages were released in response to Qatari mediation efforts, "for humanitarian reasons, and to prove to the American people and the world that the claims made by Biden and his fascist administration are false and baseless".
A spokesperson for Qatar's Foreign Ministry said Qatar's dialogue on hostage releases will continue, between Israel and Hamas.
An Israeli army statement earlier on Friday said a majority of the hostages were alive.
Relatives of other captives welcomed the release of Judith and Natalie Ranaan, and appealed for the others to be freed.
"We call on world leaders and the international community to exert their full power in order to act for the release of all the hostages and missing," a statement said.
US president Joe Biden thanked Qatar and Israel for their partnership in securing Judith and Natalie Ranaan's release.
Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas, which rules Gaza, relentlessly pounding the strip with air strikes, putting the enclave's 2.3 million people under a total siege and banning shipments of food, fuel and medical supplies.
The secretary-general of the United Nations visited the crossing between the besieged Gaza Strip and Egypt on Friday, and said humanitarian aid must be allowed across as soon as possible.
Israel agreed to allow aid to enter Gaza from Egypt earlier this week.
In a major breakthrough on Wednesday afternoon, the nation said while it will not allow humanitarian supplies into the besieged enclave from the Israeli side of the border, it will not block aid coming from Egypt.
The Health Ministry run by Hamas says more than 4,100 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the war began. That includes a disputed number of people who died in a hospital explosion earlier this week.
The Health Ministry says 13,000 more are wounded, while the UN says more than a million have been made homeless.
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed in the upsurge of violence - mostly civilians during the Hamas incursion on October 7 that shattered Israelis' sense of security and sparked the nation's retaliation.
