Day 483 - After chaotic hostage scene, Israel demands calmer handover
The Times of Israel Daily Briefing
The Times of Israel
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 31 January 2025
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.
Reporter Amy Spiro joins host Jessica Steinberg for today's episode.
With the release home of hostage and surveillance soldier Agam Berger, followed by the terrifying mayhem surrounding the release of hostages Arbel Yehoud, Gadi Mozes and the five Thai hostages, Spiro discusses Israel's delay of the release of Palestinian prisoners, and its demand to Hamas to guarantee safe passage in the release of future hostages.
Spiro reviews what is known about the release of the Thai hostages, Pongsak Thenna, Sathian Suwannakham, Watchara Sriaoun, Bannawat Seathao, and Surasak Lamnau, and reactions from the Thai Embassy.
US President Donald Trump's Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff was in Israel yesterday, meeting with some of the released hostages and in Tel Aviv's Hostages Square and Spiro discusses his central role in the ongoing ceasefire and his meetings with some of the more right-wing partners of the coalition government.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is traveling to the US next week to meet with Trump, amid the ceasefire talks, and Spiro talks about expectations for those negotiations.
For news updates, please check out The Times of Israel’s ongoing live blog.
Discussed articles include:
‘We’ll never leave you again’: Families meet freed hostages after 15 months of agony
Furious over ‘shocking scenes’ of hostage handover, Israel delays release of prisoners
Surveillance soldiers all finally home: Agam Berger’s return closes one horrific Oct. 7 chapter
In Thailand, families of hostages weep with joy upon news of their release from Gaza
Working through the trauma, Thai farmhands who survived Oct. 7 return to the fields
Zakaria Zubeidi among terrorists to get heroes’ welcome as Israel frees 110 prisoners
Witkoff meets freed soldiers, ex-hostages, officials, stresses commitment to full deal
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IMAGE: Arbel Yehoud, center, with her parents and siblings on an IDF helicopter after being freed from captivity on January 30, 2025. (Courtesy)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, welcome to the Times of Visual's Daily Briefing. It is Friday, January 31st, and I'm Jessica Steinberg. I'm speaking today with reporter Amy Spiro, who has been filling in as diplomatic correspondent for the last few weeks. Hi, Amy. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for having me. |
| 0:22.2 | Very glad to have you here. And what a few weeks it has, Amy. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Very glad to have you here. |
| 0:30.5 | And what a few weeks it has been for you as diplomatic correspondent, right? It is day 483 of the war. |
| 0:39.4 | Two of the Israeli hostages and five of the Thai hostages who were released yesterday amid total mayhem in Han Yunus. |
| 0:45.0 | And there was also Agamberger, who is the fifth of the five surveillance soldiers, who was also released home earlier in the day. So that's a total of eight hostages released yesterday. |
| 0:50.3 | And the release of Agamberger really closed a circle for those five young women and their families. |
| 0:56.3 | We'll talk about some of the details of the releases, the visit of Trump-Mid East envoy, Steve Whitkoff, who's in the region, and what will happen now with the second stages of the ceasefire and hostage talks. |
| 1:08.7 | And of course, we're also talking about three more |
| 1:11.5 | hostages who should be released tomorrow on Saturday. We'll get into all of it after a quick |
| 1:17.3 | break. |
| 1:21.0 | What if we could protect Israel with autonomous airborne devices, lasers, robots, and cyber technologies. We can, because of the Technion |
| 1:30.7 | Israel Institute of Technology, the Technion empowers brilliant innovators to make technological discoveries |
| 1:36.5 | that keep Israel safe. From the Iron Dome to the soon-to-come Iron Beam, to vital cybersecurity, |
| 1:43.6 | Technion alumni are leading projects that |
| 1:45.8 | protect Israelis and will reestablish the country's military deterrence. Be part of Israel's future |
| 1:50.8 | at aTS.org slash what if. That is ats.org slash what if. |
| 1:58.8 | Okay. So Amy, yesterday's scenes, of course, were terrifying and gut-wrenching. I'm talking about the |
| 2:06.6 | two hostages that were released in Khan Yunus and the five Thai hostages. Agan Berger, as I said, |
| 2:14.2 | the fifth of the five surveillance soldiers was released earlier in the day and dressed |
| 2:18.4 | in army fatigues, paraded on a stage. She bravely waved certificate in hand before she was handed |
| 2:25.2 | off to the Red Cross. But then there was Arbel Yehoud 29 paraded through a terrifying mob of |
| 2:33.1 | Gazans of Islamic Jihad, Hamas, really pressing in on her from all sides, |
... |
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