RAFAH, Gaza Strip (news agencies) — Hamas is set to free six more Israeli hostages Saturday from the Gaza Strip, but the exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners is shadowed by heightened tension between the adversaries that clouds the future of the fragile ceasefire deal.
Red Cross ambulances arrived Saturday morning in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah in preparation for the latest release.
The exchange is going ahead after a grisly and heart-wrenching dispute this week when Hamas initially handed over the wrong body for Shiri Bibas, an Israeli mother of two young boys abducted by militants.
The remains that Hamas transferred with her sons’ bodies on Thursday were later determined to be those of an unidentified Palestinian woman. In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed revenge for “a cruel and malicious violation,” while Hamas suggested it had been a mistake.
On Friday night, the small militant group believed to have been holding Bibas and her sons — the Palestinian Mujahedeen Brigades – said it handed over a second body. On Saturday morning, Bibas’ family said Israeli forensic authorities had confirmed the remains were hers.
“For 16 months we sought certainty, and now that it’s here, it brings no comfort, though we hope it marks the beginning of closure,” the family said.
Three other bodies returned Thursday were confirmed as those of Bibas’ sons and Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when all were taken hostage during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas that killed 1,200 in Israel and ignited the war.
Israel said its tests determined that the hostages had been killed by their captors. Hamas has claimed Lifshitz and the members of the Bibas family were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.
The dispute over the body’s identity raised new doubt about the ceasefire deal, which has paused over 15 months of war but is nearing the end of its first phase. Negotiations over a second phase, in which Hamas would release dozens more hostages in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal, are likely to be even more difficult.
Despite the dispute, Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, said it would go ahead with the release of the six Israeli hostages planned for Saturday. The six are the last living hostages to be freed during the ceasefire’s first phase.
They include Eliya Cohen, 27; Omer Shem Tov, 22; and Omer Wenkert, 23. All three were abducted from a music festival during the Oct. 7 attack. Tal Shoham, 40, who was taken from the community of Kibbutz Beeri, is also set to be released.
Avera Mengistu, 39, and Hisham Al-Sayed, 36, who have been held since crossing into Gaza on their own years ago, are also scheduled to be returned to Israel as part of the deal.
On Saturday morning, hundreds of people gathered in a rainy Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip as Hamas prepared to release the hostages.
More than 600 Palestinians jailed in Israel will be freed in exchange, the Palestinian prisoners media office said Friday. The prisoners set for release include 50 serving life sentences, 60 with long sentences, 47 who were released under a previous hostage-for-prisoner exchange and 445 prisoners from Gaza arrested since the war began.
Hamas has said it will also release four more bodies next week, completing the first phase of the ceasefire. If that plan is carried out, Hamas would retain about 60 hostages, about half of whom are believed to be alive.
Hamas has said it won’t release the remaining captives without a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal. Netanyahu, with the full backing of the Trump administration, says he’s committed to destroying Hamas’ military and governing capacities and returning all the hostages, goals widely seen as mutually exclusive.
Trump’s proposal to remove about 2 million Palestinians from Gaza so the U.S. can own and rebuild it has thrown the ceasefire into further doubt. His idea has been welcomed by Netanyahu but universally rejected by Palestinians and Arab countries.
Trump said Friday that he was “a little surprised” by rejections of the proposal by Egypt and Jordan and that he would not impose it.
“I’ll tell you, the way to do it is my plan. I think that’s the plan that really works. But I’m not forcing it. I’m just going to sit back and recommend it,” Trump said in a Fox News interview.
Israel’s military offensive killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
United Arab Emirates Dirham Exchange Rate
