Cairo — In a surprise announcement, a top Hamas leader said Tuesday that the U.S. and Israeli-designated terrorist group would release six living Israeli hostages on Saturday and the bodies of four others on Thursday, including the remains of the Bibas family, who for many Israelis have embodied the captives’ plight in Gaza.
Israel has said it is gravely concerned about Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, but has not confirmed their deaths. Hamas said they were killed in an Israeli airstrike early in the war.
Kfir, who was 9 months old at the time, was the youngest hostage taken in the Hamas-orchestrated Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack that triggered the war in Gaza. Israel’s retaliatory war in Gaza has killed more than 48,000 people, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in the Palestinian territory.
Ariel Schalit/AP
A video of the abduction on Oct. 7 showed Shiri swaddling her redheaded boys in a blanket and being whisked away by armed men.
Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya, in prerecorded remarks on Tuesday, said the “Bibas family” would be included in the handover of four bodies. They will be the first hostage remains released by the group under the current ceasefire, which took effect on January 19.
The six to be released on Saturday are the last living hostages to be freed during the ceasefire’s first phase, according to the terms of the agreement brokered by the U.S., Qatar and Egypt.
The terms of the deal called for only three more hostages to be freed in this next exchange, and it was not immediately clear why Hamas had changed the plan.
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said however that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to allow long-requested mobile homes and construction equipment into Gaza as part of efforts to accelerate the hostages’ release.
Hamas last week threatened to delay its ongoing releases of hostages, citing the refusal to allow in mobile homes and heavy equipment among other alleged Israeli violations of the truce, but an agreement was reached ahead of the Saturday handover, which went ahead without incident.
An American-Israeli dual national, Sagui Dekel-Chen, was among the three hostages released on Feb. 15 — the second U.S. national freed by Hamas during this ceasefire after Keith Siegel was handed over earlier in the month.
The hostages have been freed in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons – including some who were serving long sentences for serious crimes.
The ceasefire has paused the deadliest fighting ever between Israel and Hamas, enabled a surge of aid into the devastated Gaza Strip and allowed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to return to their homes, or what is left of them, as Israeli forces have withdrawn from much of the territory.
The sides 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.
Major challenges are ahead. Israel’s government says it wants to eliminate Hamas’ military and governing capabilities in Gaza. But the terrorist group quickly reasserted its control over the territory during the ceasefire despite losing leaders and many fighters.
In addition, President Trump’s new proposal to relocate the Palestinians out of Gaza so the U.S. can redevelop the territory has been rejected by the Arab world and by the Palestinians, whom Mr. Trump has said would not be allowed to return. But Israel has embraced the plan and, along with the Trump administration, has emphasized they share the same goals in the war.
Israelis were horrified by the sight of three emaciated hostages in an earlier release this month, and revelations about hostages being held alone, barefoot or in chains have increased the pressure on Netanyahu’s government to push ahead with the ceasefire’s next stage.
