The warring sides – Israel and Hamas – have yet to negotiate the second and more difficult phase, in which Hamas would release dozens more hostages in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday expressed his condolences over the death of four hostages in Hamas captivity, saying his heart is torn.
“Tomorrow will be a very difficult day for the State of Israel. A shocking day, a day of sorrow. We are bringing home four of our beloved hostages, fallen. We hug the families, and the heart of an entire nation is torn. My heart is torn. Yours too. And the heart of the entire world needs to be torn, because here we see who we are dealing with, what we are dealing with, what monsters we are dealing with. We grieve, and we hurt, but we are also determined to ensure that something like this will never happen again,” Netanyahu said in a video clip posted on X.
Will free six living hostages and hand over four bodies: Hamas
A top Hamas official said the militant group will free six living Israeli hostages on Saturday and return the bodies of four others on Thursday, a surprise acceleration in releases apparently in trade for Israel’s allowing mobile homes and construction equipment into the devastated Gaza Strip.
The six are the last living hostages set to be freed during the ceasefire’s first phase in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
The announcement by Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya, in prerecorded remarks released on Tuesday, said the dead would include the “Bibas family” — two young boys and their mother who for many Israelis have come to symbolise the plight of those taken captive.
“In the past few hours, we have been in turmoil,” surviving members of the Bibas family said in a statement released on Tuesday by a group representing the relatives of hostages. “Until we receive definitive confirmation, our journey is not over,” it added.
Israel has long expressed grave concern about Shiri Bibas and her sons, Kfir and Ariel, who Hamas claimed had been killed in an Israeli airstrike early in the war. Husband and father Yarden Bibas was kidnapped separately and released this month.
Kfir, who was nine months old at the time, was the youngest hostage taken in Hamas’ October 2023 attack that killed 1,200 in Israel and ignited the war. A video of the abduction showed Shiri swaddling her redheaded boys in a blanket and being whisked away by armed men.
Who all six hostages set to be freed?
The six living hostages slated for release are Eliya Cohen, Tal Shoham, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert, Hisham Al-Sayed, and Avera Mengistu, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said on Tuesday.
The release of all six this week would mark an acceleration of the ceasefire deal, which called for Hamas to release three living hostages on Saturday, with three more to be freed a week later. When the deal was made, it called only for the bodies of the dead to be returned by the end of the first phase.
Israel is expected to continue releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including many serving life sentences for deadly attacks, in exchange for the hostages.
Others were detained without charge. During the first phase, Israel is also due to release all women and children seized from Gaza since the war began.
(With PTI inputs)
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