Khan Yunis:

Hamas on Saturday released two out of three Israeli hostages in the fourth exchange of the ceasefire deal, ahead of the expected release of 183 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Ofer Kalderon and Yarden Bibas were paraded on a stage before being released to the Red Cross in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, AFP journalists reported, while Keith Siegel is set to be freed in a similar ceremony at Gaza City’s port in the north.

Israel’s military later confirmed that Bibas and Kalderon were back on Israeli territory.

After holding them hostage for more than 15 months, militants in Gaza began releasing captives on January 19, as the first phase of a ceasefire with Israel took effect.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants have so far handed over 18 hostages to the International Committee of the Red Cross in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, many of them women and minors.

Later Saturday, Israel will free 183 prisoners, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said.

“The updated number of prisoners to be released tomorrow is 183,” the Club’s spokeswoman Amani Sarahneh said Friday, after previously announcing that 90 prisoners would be freed.

During their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which started the Gaza war, militants abducted American-Israeli Siegel from the Kfar Aza kibbutz community, and Bibas and French-Israeli Kalderon from kibbutz Nir Oz.

Militants took a total of 251 people hostage that day. Of those, 76 remain in Gaza, including at least 34 the military says are dead.

Those seized include Bibas’s wife and two children, whom Hamas has declared dead, although Israeli officials have not confirmed that.

The two Bibas boys — Kfir, the youngest hostage whose second birthday was earlier this month, and his older brother Ariel whose fifth birthday was in August — have become symbols of the hostages’ ordeal.

The children were taken along with their mother, Shiri. Hamas says an Israeli air strike in November 2023 killed all three.

“Our Yarden is supposed to return tomorrow and we are so excited but Shiri and the children still haven’t returned,” the Bibas family said on Instagram Friday. “We have such mixed emotions and we are facing extremely complex days.”

“Hamas, where are the Bibas babies?” Israel’s foreign ministry posted on X. “483 days have passed. Where are they?”

Crowds mostly absent 

Ahead of both exchanges in Khan Yunis Gaza and Gaza City, scores of masked Hamas fighters stood sentry, apparently to control onlookers.

In contrast to Thursday’s frenzied exchange which drew Israeli condemnation, large crowds were mostly absent.

Green Hamas and Palestinian flags flew at the Gaza port in a strong breeze.

Ranks of heavily armed Hamas fighters held portraits of the group’s dead leaders, including military chief Mohammed Deif, accused by Israel of being a mastermind of the October 7 attack and whose death was confirmed on Thursday.

The arrangements for hostage handovers in Gaza have sometimes been chaotic, particularly Thursday’s release in Khan Yunis.

Israel briefly delayed its prisoner release on Thursday in protest, and the ICRC urged all parties to improve security.

When Saturday’s hostage release is completed, Gaza’s key Rafah border crossing with Egypt is expected to reopen, a Hamas official and a source with knowledge of discussions told AFP.

“The mediators informed Hamas of Israel’s approval to open Rafah crossing tomorrow, Saturday, after the completion of the fourth batch of prisoner exchange,” the Hamas official said.

Rafah was a vital entry point for aid into Gaza before the Israeli military seized the Palestinian side of the crossing in May.

The EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said on Friday the bloc has deployed a monitoring mission at the crossing “to support Palestinian border personnel and allow the transfer of individuals out of Gaza, including those who need medical care”.

‘Where’s Dad?’ 

On Thursday, Israeli authorities released 110 inmates from Ofer prison, including high-profile former militant commander Zakaria Zubeidi, 49, who received a hero’s welcome in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

On Friday, he called for “all our Palestinian people” to be freed from Israeli jails.

“The situation of the prisoners is very difficult and we hope for their urgent release,” Zubeidi told AFP.

Also freed was Hussein Nasser, who received little attention from the crowd but was at the centre of his daughter’s world.

“Where’s Dad?” Raghda Nasser, 21, asked tearfully as she moved through the crowd, an AFP correspondent reported.

Her mother was pregnant with her when he was jailed 22 years ago.

“I just visited him behind the glass in Israeli prisons. I cannot express my feelings,” Raghda said.

The fragile ceasefire’s 42-day first phase hinges on the release of a total of 33 hostages in exchange for around 1,900 people, mostly Palestinians, in Israeli jails.

Negotiations for a second phase of the deal are set to start on Monday, according to a timeline provided by an Israeli official.

This phase is expected to cover the release of the remaining captives and to include discussions on a more permanent end to the war.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Israel began releasing 110 Palestinian prisoners on Thursday (January 30, 2025) after eight hostages in the Gaza Strip were freed by militants earlier in the day in a sometimes chaotic process that briefly called the exchange into question and underscored the fragility of a ceasefire that began this month.

The prisoners released include 30 serving life sentences for deadly attacks against Israelis. Some are allowed to return to the occupied West Bank, while those convicted of more serious crimes are being transferred to Egypt before further deportation.

Their releases began late Thursday (January 30, 2025) after militants in Gaza freed three Israelis and five Thai nationals, who were working on farms in southern Israel when taken hostage more than 15 months ago.

The releases are part of a ceasefire aimed at ending the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and Hamas, and securing the release of dozens more hostages abducted in the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, that ignited the war.

Scuffles erupted as the convoy of buses carrying the Palestinian prisoners departed from their Israeli prison in the West Bank. Palestinian teenagers threw stones outside the complex and Israeli forces fired tear gas as they tried to clear the area.

Three Palestinians were wounded in the confrontations outside the prison, according to Palestinian Red Crescent, which said Israeli forces had used gunfire and stun grenades to disperse crowds.

The families of Palestinian prisoners caught their first glimpses of the Red Cross buses carrying their loved ones through the bus windshields, some shattered in the melee of stone-throwing and tear gas-firing.

The uproar came hours after a chaotic hostage handover in the Gaza Strip, where masked militants shuttled some captives through a crowd of thousands of Palestinians.

Hamas released seven of the hostages in front of the destroyed home of its slain leader, Yahya Sinwar, as thousands pressed in. The militant group called it a “message of determination,” but it triggered the latest in a series of disputes that have sent U.S. and Arab mediators scrambling to patch up the truce.

The first hostage — female soldier Agam Berger, 20 — was released after Hamas paraded her in front of a smaller crowd in the heavily destroyed urban Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza.

Hours later, a chaotic scene unfolded at a handover of the other seven in the southern city of Khan Younis. Hundreds of militants from Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group arrived with a convoy, and thousands of people gathered to watch, some from the tilted rooftops of bombed-out buildings.

Footage showed hostage Arbel Yehoud, 29, looking stunned as masked militants hustled her through the shouting crowd, pushing people back. Also released were Gadi Moses, an 80-year-old Israeli man, and five Thai laborers. Both Ms. Yehoud and Mr. Moses are dual German-Israeli nationals.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the “shocking scenes” and called on international mediators to ensure the safety of hostages in future releases.

Israel identified the Thai hostages released as: Watchara Sriaoun, 33; Pongsak Thaenna, 36; Sathian Suwannakham, 35; Surasak Rumnao, 32; and Bannawat Saethao, 27. Thai officials said they appeared to be in good health.

Twenty three Thais were among more than 100 hostages released during a weeklong ceasefire in November 2023. Israel says three Thais remain in captivity, two of whom are believed to be dead.

Ms. Yehoud had been at the centre of a dispute earlier this week over the sequence in which the hostages would be released. The United States, Egypt and Qatar, which brokered the ceasefire after a year of tough negotiations, resolved it with an agreement that Ms. Yehoud would be released with the others on Thursday (January 30, 2025).

About 20 friends of Ms. Yehoud gathered in southern Israel watched as the tense scene unfolded on live television. Some cried. Others had their hands over their eyes or mouths. The crowd then burst into tears after she was turned over to the Red Cross.

Footage released by the Israeli military showed 80-year-old Mr. Moses’ relatives bursting into the room, embracing the elderly man. His daughter exclaimed repeatedly, “My father, my father!”

In the first phase of the ceasefire, Hamas is set to release a total of 33 Israeli hostages, including women, children, older adults and sick or wounded men, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Israel says Hamas has confirmed that eight of the hostages to be released in this phase are dead.

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A line of white buses carrying Palestinian prisoners left Ofer prison in the West Bank and made their way toward Beitunah, near the occupied West Bank City of Ramallah where relatives and celebrations awaited.

Among those set to be released from prisons on Thursday (January 30, 2025) is Zakaria Zubeidi, a prominent former militant leader and theatre director who took part in a dramatic jailbreak in 2021 before being rearrested days later.

In addition, around 30 people who are serving life sentences after being convicted of deadly attacks against Israelis are set to be freed.

Palestinians have cheered the release of the prisoners, who they widely see as heroes who have sacrificed for the cause of ending Israel’s decadeslong occupation of lands they want for a future state.

Also Read | Israel kills 2 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, officials say

Israeli forces have meanwhile pulled back from most of Gaza, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to return to what remains of their homes and humanitarian groups to surge assistance.

The deal calls for Israel and Hamas to negotiate a second phase in which Hamas would release the remaining hostages and the ceasefire would continue indefinitely. The war could resume in early March if an agreement is not reached.

Explained | Will the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip hold?

Israel says it is still committed to destroying Hamas, even after the militant group reasserted its rule over Gaza within hours of the truce. A key far-right partner in Netanyahu’s coalition is already calling for the war to resume after the ceasefire’s first phase.

Also Read | Gaza ceasefire traps Netanyahu between Trump and far-right allies

Hamas says it won’t release the remaining hostages without an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.