Bayaya Lubell, Nidal al-Mughrabi with Dawoud Abu Alkas
JERUSALEM/CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) – Palestinian militant movement Hamas is expected to release four Israeli Israeli soldiers on Saturday in exchange for a group of Palestinian prisoners as part of a ceasefire deal aimed at ending the 15-month war in Gaza.
Dozens of masked and armed Hamas and fellow Islamic Jihad militants gathered in a Gaza square where a podium had been set up as a crowd of Palestinians gathered. A banner hanging from the stage reading “Zionism” in Hebrew will not prevail.
A team from the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza was on its way to pick up the Israeli hostages from Hamas, an official involved in the operation told Reuters.
The four soldiers – Karina Ariev, Daniela Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag – were all stationed at an observation post on the edge of the Gaza Strip and were kidnapped by Hamas militants who overran their base during the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
One of the soldiers was held by Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian source said.
Hamas said 200 prisoners will be freed on Saturday as part of the exchange. These include members of Islamic Jihad, Hamas and the popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), some serving life sentences.
Around 70 will be deported, Hamas said. A Palestinian official close to the talks told Reuters that some of the freed prisoners will be released to Egypt. Some of them will stay in Egypt, while others will go to Algeria, Qatar or Turkey.
They are likely to include militants convicted of deadly attacks in Israel that killed dozens of people.
Saturday’s exchange would be the second since the ceasefire began on Sunday and Hamas handed over three Israeli civilians in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners.
Hamas on Friday identified the four hostages released in the second swap. However, Israel has not officially commented and cannot do so until it actually receives them.
The Red Cross will receive them from Hamas in Gaza and hand them over to Israeli forces, which will transport them to Israel, where they will be reunited with family, undergo initial medical treatment and be taken to hospital. Another female soldier kidnapped with them is expected to be released in the coming weeks.
Video of the Four’s abduction broadcast in May showed the five conscripts, pajama-clad and stunned and bloody, bound and bundled into a jeep. The footage was recovered from body cameras worn by gunmen who attacked the Nahal Oz base in southern Israel, where the women served as surveillance spotters.
Phased ceasefire
The ceasefire agreement, after months of on-off negotiations brokered by Qatar and Egypt and aided and abetted by the United States, has stalled for the first time since a ceasefire that lasted just a week in November 2023.
In the first six-week phase of the deal, Hamas has agreed to release 33 hostages, including children, women, elderly men and the sick and injured, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons while Israeli troops withdraw from some of their positions in the Gaza Strip .
In a subsequent phase, the two sides negotiate the exchange of the remaining hostages, including men of military age, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, which is largely in ruins after 15 months of fighting and Israeli bombardment.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after the Hamas attack on October 7, when militants killed 1,200 people and brought more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli days. Since then, more than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to health authorities.
After Sunday’s release of hostages Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher and the recovery of the body of an Israeli soldier missing for a decade, Israel says 94 Israelis and foreigners remain held in Gaza. Around a third were declared dead in absentia by Israeli authorities.
