A top Hamas leader says that the militant group plans to release six more living Israeli hostages from their Gaza captivity on Saturday and the bodies of four others on Thursday.
Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya made the surprise announcement in a recorded statement Tuesday, an apparent response to the Israeli decision to allow long-requested mobile homes and construction equipment into the Gaza Strip.
The six living hostages are the last set to be freed under the first phase of the ceasefire that expires in early March, with Hamas believed to be holding about 70 more captives, half of them living. Four more bodies of hostages are set to be returned next week.
So far during the ceasefire, Hamas has released 24 hostages, and Israel freed more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.
The warring sides have yet to negotiate the second and more difficult phase of their truce, in which Hamas says it will only release the remaining hostages in exchange for a lasting halt to the fighting and a full Israeli troop withdrawal from the narrow territory along the Mediterranean Sea.
Meanwhile, Israel has not backed off its goal, supported by the United States, of eradicating any military or governing role for Hamas in Gaza.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Tuesday that Israel was ready to open negotiations on the details of the second phase. Those talks were supposed to have started two weeks ago, according to the ceasefire deal.
In his remarks, Hayya said the "Bibas family" would be included in the handover of the four bodies, apparently referring to Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, who for many Israelis embody the captives' plight.
Israel has not confirmed their deaths, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office urged the public not to distribute "photos, names and rumors." Israel has said it was gravely concerned about the Bibas family, while Hamas said they were killed in an Israeli airstrike early in the war. Yarden Bibas, the husband and father, was kidnapped separately and released this month.
Kfir, who was 9 months old at the time, was the youngest hostage taken in Hamas' shock Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that triggered 15 months of fighting. Video footage of the abduction showed Shiri swaddling her redheaded boys in a blanket and being whisked away by armed men.
"In recent hours we have been shaken after the Hamas spokesman's announcement was published about the return of our Shiri, Ariel and Kfir this coming Thursday as part of the movement to release kidnapped civilians,” the family said in a statement. “It is important for us to say that we are aware of the reports but have not yet received an official update on the matter.”
“Until we receive certainty, our journey will not end,” the family said.
An Israeli official said Netanyahu had agreed to allow the mobile homes and construction equipment into Gaza to accelerate the hostages' release. Hamas last week threatened to hold up the release of more hostages, citing the mobile home issue and other alleged violations of the truce.
Israel is expected to continue releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including many serving life sentences for deadly attacks, in exchange for the hostages.
Israelis and Palestinians marked 500 days of the war on Monday.
Hamas killed about 1,200 people in the October 2023 attack and took about 250 as hostages. More than half the captives have been released in ceasefire agreements and other deals, while eight were rescued in military operations.
Israel's air and ground war killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants. The Israeli military, without offering evidence, says the death toll includes 17,000 militants. The offensive destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced most of its population of 2.3 million.
Meanwhile, Israeli troops remained in some areas of southern Lebanon on Tuesday, despite a deadline for their withdrawal as part of a ceasefire with the militant group Hezbollah.
Israel withdrew from some villages in the region, but said it was leaving forces in place in five positions that it said were necessary to protect parts of northern Israel.
A joint statement from Lebanon’s president, prime minister and parliament speaker on Tuesday called on the U.N. Security Council to demand Israel’s immediate withdrawal.
The ceasefire agreement called for Israel to withdraw by late January, with Hezbollah also moving away from the border and U.N. peacekeepers deploying in the vacated buffer zone along with the Lebanese troops. An extension pushed the deadline to Tuesday.
The U.N. envoy for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and the head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission and force commander in Lebanon, Lieutenant General Aroldo Lazaro, said in a joint statement that another delay in implementing the ceasefire deal “is not what we hoped would happen.”
Katz said the military “will remain in a buffer zone in Lebanon with five control positions and will continue to act forcefully and uncompromisingly against any Hezbollah violation.”
The ceasefire, reached in late November, halted more than a year of fighting in Lebanon, which had intensified in the months ahead of the truce, with Israeli troops conducting ground operations inside of Lebanon and repeated airstrikes targeting Hezbollah.
The militants launched a cross-border rocket campaign in October 2023, attacking northern Israel a day after Hamas attacked southern Israel.
Hamas and Hezbollah have been designated by the United States and others as terrorist organizations.
Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
