Israel-Hamas End Gaza Hold, Keeping Hopes Alive for 2nd Hostage-Palestinian Prisoner Swap

Tel Aviv – as fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas Held for the sixth day, the terrorist group that was designed by the US and Israel released the names on Friday of the next four Israeli hostages, it says will be released on Saturday, in exchange for 200 more Palestinian detainees currently held in Israeli prisons. The hostages named by Hamas are all female Israeli soldiers, according to a statement issued by a Hamas official earlier in the week.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed in a brief statement that it had received a list of hostages from Hamas on Friday, but did not immediately confirm the identities of the female soldiers expected to return home on Saturday.

The military soldiers identified on Friday by Hamas’ armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, were all abducted from the Nahal Oz army base in southern Israel during the group’s October 7, 2023, terror attack. They are: Karina Ariev, 20; Daniela Gilboa, 20, on whom Hamas released a proof-of-life video in July 2024; Naama Levmy, 20, who was seen on video killed in a jeep with his hands tied behind his back during the attack, and Liri Albag, 19, who had just started military training as a military lookout at the Nahal Oz base.

Albago’s family said they were able to pass messages to them through other hostages that had been released earlier.

Currently, seven Israeli women are still being held in Gaza, including five IDF service members and two civilians. One of the civilians is Arbel Yehoud, who was kidnapped in the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz and whose last chilling message to his partner Ariel Cunio was: “We are in a horror movie.”

The other is Shiri Bibas, who was taken with her two young children Ariel and Kfir. Hamas claimed that Shiri, Ariel and Kfir were later killed in an Israeli bombardment. In a TV interview in June, then-Israeli minister Benny Gantz said the government knew what happened to the Bibas family, but said he could not provide details.

A Hamas official said it was under conditions cease-fire Under the agreement, for every Israeli female soldier, Israel would release 30 prisoners serving life sentences and 20 additional prisoners serving long sentences.

Netanyahu’s office said it would release a list later Friday of the Palestinians it intends to release in the upcoming swap. Most of them are expected to be women, as were the roughly 90 prisoners freed in the first exchange on January 19, hours after the ceasefire agreement took effect.

Hamas edition The first three soils A week ago – three Israeli women, including one who is a dual British citizen – played out in pictures that were broadcast around the world. Red Cross vehicles were first seen driving towards Gaza City before sunset, in a sign that work was on its way. In one of Gaza City’s largest squares, the door of a Hamas vehicle was thrown open, and Romi Gonen, 24, Emily Damari, 28, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31, were pinned down by a Red Cross car as heavily armed and masked Hamas militants crushed them. by cars and thousands of spectators watched.

If the next four Israelis are released as expected on Saturday, 89 hostages – both alive and dead – would remain in Gaza, according to Israeli officials, including seven dual US citizens: Keith Siegel, 65, of Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Sagui Dekel-Chen, 35, who grew up in Bloomfield, Connecticut; and Edan Alexander, 19, of Tenafly, New Jersey.

Four Americans are believed to have been killed during the 15 months of war.

Gaza ceasefire tested, but holding

There was a truce in Gaza tested by isolated violence This week, but he held.

Israeli tank shelling on Thursday killed two Palestinians in the first bloodshed since airstrikes stopped on Sunday morning. Israel’s military said its forces in southern Gaza opened fire on masked, armed suspects who were moving toward troops and posing a threat. The IDF said the incident occurred east of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, in the area of ​​the Kerema Shalom border crossing with Israel, through which some aid trucks are now delivering food, water and medical supplies.

The UN says more than 650 trucks carrying food and other humanitarian supplies entered Gaza on Thursday, slightly more than the 600 per day agreed to in the ceasefire agreement.

Tens, if not hundreds of thousands of displaced Gazans were eagerly awaiting the coming weekend, preparing to return freely to the decimated northern enclave, as agreed in the agreement. A stark indication of what awaits them has already been discovered by those who have returned to their homes or what is left of them in the south.

The returnees found entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble, and even without the heavy machinery really needed, they began the work of rebuilding and the grim task of finding and exhuming the remains of loved ones. Nearly 200 bodies have been recovered since Sunday, but the Hamas Enclave’s Civil Protection Rescue Agency estimates that more than 10,000 bodies are likely still under the rubble, and accepts that some may never be found.

In Rafah, Mohammed Mustafa Hamad Qeshta told CBS News’ Gaza team on Wednesday that an IDF strike killed his brother Ibrahim 261 days earlier.

“We got him out with a broom today,” he cried. “The whole house collapsed and fell on him. We called civil protection, asking for help to recover his body. They kept saying that they would do it, but it was delayed, and we want to get his body out. We decided to dig it up. I called and called Mrs. Family to tell them we found him.

Ibrahim’s mother, Sameera Masoud al-Shaer, told CBS News she was thrilled to at least get some closure.

“I am happy, and these are tears of joy,” she said. “I’m glad I found him. This is the best moment. I was waiting for the armistice so I could see him. This is the best moment of my life. Thank God the wall fell on him and we were able to find the whole body AND he wasn’t eaten by dogs . “

Although the ceasefire in Gaza has held, the IDF this week shifted its focus and firepower to what it says are Iranian-backed militants in the West Bank, a much larger Palestinian territory long occupied by Israel.

IDF Operation “Iron Wall” launched On Tuesday, a day after President Trump rescinded a Biden-era executive order that imposed sanctions on the West Bank against some Israeli settlers it deemed a threat to peace and security.

At least a dozen Palestinians have been killed and dozens more injured since the IDF offensive began, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the West Bank.

On Friday, the United Nations denied what it called Israel’s use of “war-fighting” methods in the West Bank operation.