GAZA STRIP (Dispatches) -- Hamas on Saturday released four female Israeli soldiers held captive during the brutal 15-month-long war of the Zionist regime on the Gaza Strip in return for 200 Palestinian prisoners, in the second exchange since a fragile ceasefire took effect last weekend.
The truce halted the fighting in Gaza for at least six weeks during which dozens of Israeli captives and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners will be freed while more aid flows in.
The freed Palestinians included 121 people serving life sentences after being convicted of deadly attacks against Zionists, while others were held without charge.
Three buses carrying 114 Palestinian prisoners arrived in Ramallah, where crowds of Palestinians lined the streets to welcome them. The Palestinian Prisoners Club said that among those released was Muhammad al-Tous, 69, who has spent the longest continuous period in Israeli detention.
Some of those released wore Hamas headbands given to them by the crowd. Wan-looking and wearing gray prison sweatsuits, they rode on supporters’ shoulders.
Meanwhile, 16 prisoners were transferred to the Gaza Strip, while 70 others - including Palestinians serving life sentences and long-term prison terms - were released into Egypt for exile, state-run Al Qahera News said.
They “will choose Algeria, Turkey or Tunisia” to reside, said Amin Shuman, head of the Palestinian prisoners’ affairs committee.
According to the terms of the agreement, Israel is expected to free 50 Palestinian prisoners for every female soldier released.
The four soldiers were presented on a stage at a main square in Gaza City, where dozens of Hamas fighters had gathered earlier, and handed over to the Red Cross.
The Israeli military said they were accompanied by special forces and Shin Bet agents on their return to the occupied territories, “where they will undergo an initial medical assessment”.
The four, all Israeli soldiers dressed in military fatigues, had been held captive in the Palestinian territory since Hamas captured them during its landmark Operation Al-Aqsa Flood inside settlements.
They appeared to be in good condition and were seen smiling as each carried a bag and waved to the crowd in Gaza City’s Palestine Square where the stage was adorned with the message, in Hebrew, “Zionism will not prevail”.
A video released by Hamas’ armed wing showed the captives thanking in Arabic for the “good treatment”. 
Fighters from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, carrying assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, gathered in rows, as crowds of Gaza residents watched the handover.
It was a clear message that the “command and control of Hamas is intact and other Palestinian factions as well”, according to Muhanad Seloom, an assistant professor in critical security studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies in Qatar.
Hamas has recruited between 10,000 and 15,000 members since the start of the war with Israel, according to two congressional sources briefed on U.S. intelligence quoted by Reuters.
On January 14, then-president Joe Biden’s secretary of state Antony Blinken said the United States believed Hamas had recruited almost as many fighters as it had lost in the Palestinian enclave, cautioning that this was a “recipe for an enduring insurgency and perpetual war.”
“Each time Israel completes its military operations and pulls back, Hamas militants regroup and reemerge because there’s nothing else to fill the void,” Blinken said.
Hamas armed wing spokesman Abu Obeida said in July that the resistance organization had been able to recruit thousands of new fighters.
The exchange is part of a fragile ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that took effect last Sunday, and which is intended to pave the way to a permanent end to the war.
The ceasefire agreement should be implemented in three phases, but the last two stages have not been finalized yet.
During the first, 42-day phase, 33 captives Israel believes are still alive should be freed in staggered releases in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
Three captives returned to Israeli settlements on the first day of the truce last Sunday and 90 Palestinians, mostly women and minors, were released in exchange.
Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau based in Qatar, said Palestinians displaced by the war to southern Gaza should be able to begin returning to the north following Saturday’s releases.
But prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel would not allow displaced Palestinians to begin returning to northern Gaza, which had been expected to begin by Sunday, because a captive who was allegedly supposed to be released by Hamas had not been freed on Saturday. 
Mediators said they were trying to resolve the dispute, and it was not clear when Palestinians would be able to return home.
As mediators addressed the issue, hundreds of Palestinians gathered, waiting to move north. “Why are they treating us like this?” asked one man, Khalil Abd.
Zionist forces and shot and killed a Palestinian man close to the Netzarim corridor where people were waiting, Palestinian medical officials said.
Hamas said it held the Zionist regime responsible for “any delay in implementing the agreement and its repercussions.”
A senior Hamas official said the group informed mediators that the captive in question will be released next week.
Families displaced by more than a year of the Israeli war long to return home, but many are about to find only rubble where houses once stood.
Almost the entire Gaza population of 2.4 million has been displaced by the war.
According to the United Nations, nearly 69 percent of buildings in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed or damaged. The UN Development Programme estimated last year that it could take until 2040 to rebuild all destroyed homes.
Israel’s war on Gaza has martyred more than 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.