A third batch of 39 Palestinian prisoners has been freed in exchange for Israeli captives between Hamas as Israel as the four days truce deal brokered by Qatar and Turkey continues for a third day.

Large crowds of Palestinians took to the streets in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on Sunday night as they waited for Red Cross buses carrying the prisoners.

Some waved Palestinian flags alongside the flags of the two main Palestinian political parties, Hamas and Fatah.

Some youth climbed on top of a white bus transporting mostly young men and some female prisoners.

“At first we did not believe it,” Shakir Mahajna told Al Jazeera while he waited with his family for his son Omar, who recently turned 18.

“The last time I visited him he was frustrated, he told me ‘Dad I want to leave’,” said Mahajna, whose son was 16 when he was arrested and had four months left in his sentence.

“After what happened in October, I was even more scared,” Nour Ara’ar, whose 17-year-old brother Zeid was arrested in July, told Al Jazeera.

“Everything was suspended because of the war,” she added. “The trial did not take place.”

“We are happy, but we are experiencing mixed feelings. Our joy is incomplete because of what is happening in Gaza,” she added.

Earlier on Sunday, Hamas handed over 13 Israeli captives, including nine children and four foreign nationals – three Thais and one Israeli Russian – to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as part of the truce deal.

The Israeli Russian was released “in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts and in recognition of Russia’s position in support of Palestine”, Hamas said in a statement.

He is the first male captive to be released since the truce deal came into effect.

US President Joe Biden said a four-year-old Israeli-American girl, Abigail Edan, whose parents were killed in the October 7 Hamas attack, was also among those released.

“She’s free and she’s in Israel,” he said, adding that another dual American citizen – a 45-year-old woman – was also released.

Unlike the first two days of the four-day truce, Israeli captives held by Hamas were delivered in central Gaza, where the fighting until recently had been intense.

On the previous two days, the captives were handed over to the Red Cross in southern Gaza.

Israeli prison officials say third batch of 39 Palestinian prisoners released after Hamas handed over 13 Israelis and four foreign nationals to the Red Cross.

Meanwhile, Israel’s war cabinet has discussed the possibility of extending the temporary truce with Hamas when it met on Sunday evening, an Israeli source has told the CNN network.

The source said conditions for an extension remain unchanged from the original agreement, which means Hamas needs to release an additional 10 hostages for each additional day’s pause in the fighting.

France also hopes truce lasts until all captives are released, adding to growing calls for an extension to the four-day truce agreement between Israel and Hamas.

“We demand the release of our hostages and all the hostages. It would be good, helpful and necessary for the truce to be extended to this end,” French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna told BFMTV.

No French captives have been freed yet, but Colonna said she had “good hope” that would change.

“There are lists drawn up during the negotiations through Qatar” but “Hamas makes its choices within these lists”, she said.