Pictures of Ofer Kalderon, Keith Siegel and Yarden Bibas were everywhere on Saturday at "Hostages Square" in Tel Aviv as the three Israeli captives were released by Gaza militants.

Sighs of relief ran through onlookers gathered to watch a live transmission of the three being handed over to the Red Cross in the Palestinian territory before being brought home to Israel.

"It's a good feeling, it makes us stronger," Miki Pnini, a 67-year-old Israeli from the outlying suburb of Pardesiya west of Tel Aviv, told AFP.

Pnini noted with satisfaction that "Ofer is on his legs, we can't believe it after all he went through".

Kalderon is a dual French-Israeli national, and Paris's ambassador to Israel, Frederic Journes, allowed himself a smile on Saturday as Kalderon was freed.

For months, pictures of Kalderon and another Franco-Israeli hostage have been on display outside the French embassy.

Hundreds of people came to the square on Saturday for the fourth handover of hostages since the ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip took effect on 19 January.

Some onlookers bore Israeli flags and others sported the yellow ribbons now associated with the hostages.

'Very emotional'

Among them, Veronica Zaragovia, a 42-year-old resident of Tel Aviv, clutched her Israeli flag as she fought back tears.

"I just, you know, holding the Israeli flag and seeing that is very emotional. I just feel like it's all coming out," she said, a yellow ribbon necklace around her neck.

"We were just all braced for the worst, and that they're all coming out alive and, let's say, like, with their limbs and relatively healthy is incredible."

Many in the crowd were somber, with some crying and others giving furtive smiles as they watched a drawn but confident 65-year-old US-Israel hostage Keith Siegel being handed over by his Hamas captors.

The ceremonies staged by Hamas and fellow Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad for the hostage handovers have been widely criticized in Israel.

Hamas has made them mount platforms draped with anti-Israel slogans and photos of slain militant leaders, instructing them to wave for the cameras and pose with gift bags from the Islamist movement.

The mobile phone case of one woman near the television screens in the Tel Aviv square on Saturday made her feelings quite clear: "Keep calm and Fuck Hamas," it read.

"Seeing them alive is like the best feeling ever, but we are very worried," said Eve Anne, a Tel Aviv resident who did not wish to disclose her surname.

"We are kind of down and upset because of the deal that has been made, one of the worst deals that can be made," she said, referring to the hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including many serving life sentences, being freed in exchange for the Gaza hostages.

Bibas family

The level of excitement Saturday was not what it was for the first hostage releases last month.

Early in the day, only around 30 people were in the square for the day's first hostage handover — of Kalderon — which came at around 8:30 am local time.

It was quickly followed by the release of Yarden Bibas, who turned 35 in captivity.

He had been seized along with his wife Shiri and young sons Ariel and Kfir, the youngest hostage, who was just 18 months old when he was taken during Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.

Many of those in Tel Aviv on Saturday carried pictures of Shiri Bibas and her boys, who by now are known to every Israeli.

Two visibly emotional men and two women wore orange, the color associated with the Bibas family.

Yarden Bibas is now free, but his family's fate is unknown. Hamas has said his wife and sons were killed in an Israeli air strike in November 2023, but Israel has not confirmed their deaths.

One onlooker in the square wore the number "484", referring to the number of days the hostages had spent in captivity.

The voice of one Israeli journalist broke as she commentated on images of the hostages being reunited with their loved ones.

Those assembled on the square were also overcome with emotion.