Hamas Begins Freeing 8 More Hostages as Gaza Truce Holds. Israel is Set to Release 110 Prisoners

An Israeli police officer looks on as a Red Cross vehicle is seen near the Israeli military prison, Ofer, on the day Israel releases Palestinian prisoners as part of a hostages-prisoners swap and a ceasefire deal in Gaza between Hamas and Israel, near Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, January 19, 2025. (Reuters)
An Israeli police officer looks on as a Red Cross vehicle is seen near the Israeli military prison, Ofer, on the day Israel releases Palestinian prisoners as part of a hostages-prisoners swap and a ceasefire deal in Gaza between Hamas and Israel, near Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, January 19, 2025. (Reuters)
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Hamas Begins Freeing 8 More Hostages as Gaza Truce Holds. Israel is Set to Release 110 Prisoners

An Israeli police officer looks on as a Red Cross vehicle is seen near the Israeli military prison, Ofer, on the day Israel releases Palestinian prisoners as part of a hostages-prisoners swap and a ceasefire deal in Gaza between Hamas and Israel, near Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, January 19, 2025. (Reuters)
An Israeli police officer looks on as a Red Cross vehicle is seen near the Israeli military prison, Ofer, on the day Israel releases Palestinian prisoners as part of a hostages-prisoners swap and a ceasefire deal in Gaza between Hamas and Israel, near Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, January 19, 2025. (Reuters)

Hamas began the process of freeing three more Israeli hostages and five Thai captives on Thursday, the third such release since a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip took hold earlier this month. Israel was expected to release another 110 Palestinian prisoners. 

The truce is aimed at winding down the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and Hamas, whose Oct. 7, 2023, attack into Israel sparked the fighting. It has held despite a dispute earlier this week over the sequence in which the hostages were released, The Associated Press said. 

Hamas handed female Israeli soldier Agam Berger, 20, to the Red Cross at a ceremony in the heavily destroyed urban refugee camp of Jabaliya in northern Gaza. The Israeli government later confirmed that Berger was with its forces. 

Another ceremony was planned in the southern city of Khan Younis, in front of the destroyed home of slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Both were attended by hundreds of people, including masked armed men and onlookers. 

In Israel, people cheered, clapped and whistled at a square in Tel Aviv where supporters of the hostages watched Berger’s handover on big screens next to a large clock that’s counted the days the hostages have been in captivity. Some held signs saying: “Agam we’re waiting for you at home.” 

Berger was among five young, female soldiers abducted in the Oct. 7 attack. The other four were released on Saturday. The other two Israelis set to be released Thursday are Arbel Yehoud, 29, and Gadi Moses, an 80-year-old man. 

There was no official confirmation of the identities of the Thai nationals who will be released. 

A number of foreign workers were taken captive along with dozens of Israeli civilians and soldiers during Hamas' attack. Twenty-three Thais were among more than 100 hostages released during a weeklong ceasefire in November 2023. Israel says eight Thais remain in captivity, two of whom are believed to be dead. 

Of the people set to be released from prisons in Israel, 30 are serving life sentences after being convicted of deadly attacks against Israelis. Zakaria Zubeidi, a prominent former Hamas leader and theater director who took part in a dramatic jailbreak in 2021 before being rearrested days later, is also among those set to be released. 

Israel said Yehoud was supposed to have been freed Saturday and delayed the opening of crossings to northern Gaza when she was not. 

The United States, Egypt and Qatar, which brokered the ceasefire after a year of tough negotiations, resolved the dispute with an agreement that Yehoud would be released Thursday. Another three hostages, all men, are set to be freed Saturday along with dozens more Palestinian prisoners. 

On Monday, Israel began allowing Palestinians to return to northern Gaza, the most heavily destroyed part of the territory, and hundreds of thousands streamed back. Many found only mounds of rubble where their homes had been. 

Ceasefire holds for now but next phase will be harder. 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. 

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

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. 

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

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

Tens of thousands killed Hamas started the war when it sent thousands of fighters storming into Israel. Hamas killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250. 

Israel’s ensuing air and ground war among the deadliest and most destructive in decades. More than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed, over half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were Hamas members. 

The Israeli military says it killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence, and that it went to great lengths to try to spare civilians. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because its fighters operate in dense residential neighborhoods and put military infrastructure near homes, schools and mosques. 

The Israeli offensive has transformed entire neighborhoods into mounds of gray rubble, and it’s unclear how or when anything will be rebuilt. Around 90% of Gaza’s population has been displaced, often multiple times, with hundreds of thousands of people living in squalid tent camps or shuttered schools. 

 



Hamas Says Ready to Free All Hostages at Once in Gaza Truce Phase Two

The sun sets behind heavily damaged residential buildings in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on February 17, 2025, as people return to northern parts of Gaza during a current ceasefire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
The sun sets behind heavily damaged residential buildings in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on February 17, 2025, as people return to northern parts of Gaza during a current ceasefire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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Hamas Says Ready to Free All Hostages at Once in Gaza Truce Phase Two

The sun sets behind heavily damaged residential buildings in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on February 17, 2025, as people return to northern parts of Gaza during a current ceasefire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
The sun sets behind heavily damaged residential buildings in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on February 17, 2025, as people return to northern parts of Gaza during a current ceasefire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

Hamas signaled on Wednesday that it was willing to free all remaining hostages held in Gaza in a single swap during the next phase of an ongoing ceasefire.  

Israel and Hamas are currently in the process of implementing phase one of the fragile truce, which has held since taking effect on January 19 despite accusations of violations on both sides.  

Israel's foreign minister said on Tuesday that talks would begin "this week" on the second phase, which is expected to lay out a more permanent end to the war.

"We have informed the mediators that Hamas is ready to release all hostages in one batch during the second phase of the agreement, rather than in stages as in the current first phase," senior Hamas official Taher al-Nunu told AFP.

He did not clarify how many hostages were currently being held by Hamas or other armed groups.  

Nunu said this step was meant "to confirm our seriousness and complete readiness to move forward in resolving this issue, as well as to continue steps towards cementing the ceasefire and achieving a sustainable truce".  

Under the ceasefire's first phase, 19 Israeli hostages have been released so far in exchange for more than 1,100 Palestinian prisoners freed from Israeli jails in a series of Red Cross-mediated swaps.  

Wednesday's offer came after Israel and Hamas announced a deal for the return of all six remaining living hostages eligible for release under phase one in a single swap this weekend.  

Hamas also agreed on Tuesday to return the bodies of eight dead hostages in two groups this week and next.  

After the completion of the first phase, 58 hostages will remain in Gaza.  

The armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad said on Wednesday that it would release the body of Israeli hostage Oded Lifshitz on Thursday. The group said Lifshitz was one of the hostages killed during Israeli strikes on Gaza.  

- 'Room to pressure Hamas' -  

Muhammad Shehada, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that after more than a year of devastating Israeli assault in Gaza, "Hamas wants to prevent the war resuming at any cost", albeit with some "red lines".  

"And one of those red lines is that they should continue to exist, basically, whereas (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu's position is that they should dismantle themselves," he said.  

Since the start of the war, Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas's capacity to fight or govern, something the group has rejected.  

But the appearance that Washington is now in complete alignment with Netanyahu's government, as displayed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's visit this week, strengthened the Israeli premier's hand in negotiations, according to Michael Horowitz, an expert at the risk management consultancy Le Beck International.  

It gives Netanyahu "more room to pressure Hamas", Horowitz said, adding that US President Donald Trump "prefers that the agreement moves forward, but he's leaving the field open to Netanyahu... as long as the ceasefire is maintained".  

- 'Held onto hope' -

Among the bodies Hamas said it would hand over on Thursday are those of Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Kfir and Ariel, who have become national symbols in Israel of the hostages' ordeal.  

The boys' father Yarden Bibas was taken hostage separately on October 7, 2023, and was released alive during an earlier hostage-prisoner swap.  

While Hamas said Shiri Bibas and her boys were killed in an Israeli air strike early in the war, Israel has never confirmed this, and many supporters remain unconvinced of their deaths, including members of the Bibas family.  

"I ask that no one eulogize my family just yet. We have held onto hope for 16 months, and we are not giving up now," the boys' aunt, Ofri Bibas, wrote on Facebook late Tuesday following Hamas's announcement.  

Israeli authorities have confirmed that the remains of four hostages are due to be returned on Thursday, although they have not officially named them.  

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has acted as go-between in the exchanges, called for a respectful handover of the hostages' remains.  

"We once again call for all releases to be conducted in a private and dignified manner, including when they tragically involve the deceased," it said.  

Hamas and its allies took 251 people hostage during the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, of whom 70 remain in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.  

The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.  

Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,297 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.  

Since the war began, Israeli forces have detained hundreds of Gazans, some of whom have been released in previous rounds of hostage-prisoner exchanges.