35 detainees from Gaza released through Kerem Abu Salem crossing

Israel freed 35 people it had been holding from the Gaza Strip on Sunday, one of them a woman, in a handover at the Kerem Abu Salem crossing conducted by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The 35 had been held for varying periods, at several locations inside Gaza rather than at one facility. On arrival they were taken to the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, in the southern Strip.

Palestinian prisoner organisations counted about 9,400 Palestinians in Israeli prisons as of July 2026. Roughly 1,320 of them are from Gaza and are held as "unlawful combatants", a classification that keeps a detainee in custody without a charge to answer.

For families, a release of this kind is often the first confirmation that a relative is alive and where he was held. The organisations that keep these counts say a further number are held in military facilities they cannot account for, and no figure for those has been published — so the 9,400 is a floor, not a total.