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Gaza Groups Will Release Three Hostages on Saturday, Hamas Official Says

Palestinians walk next to the rubble of destroyed buildings, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, at Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip, February 13, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinians walk next to the rubble of destroyed buildings, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, at Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip, February 13, 2025. (Reuters)
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Gaza Groups Will Release Three Hostages on Saturday, Hamas Official Says

Palestinians walk next to the rubble of destroyed buildings, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, at Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip, February 13, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinians walk next to the rubble of destroyed buildings, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, at Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip, February 13, 2025. (Reuters)

Palestinian armed groups in Gaza said they would release hostages Iair Horn, US-Israeli Sagui Dekel-Chen and Russian-Israeli Alexandre Sasha Troufanov on Saturday, in accordance with the terms of the ceasefire with Israel.

The announcement, after days of uncertainty about whether the ceasefire agreed last month would hold, followed intense efforts by Egyptian and Qatari mediators to keep last month's US-backed agreement on track.

A statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israel accepted the list.

Hamas had earlier threatened not to release more hostages after it accused Israel of violating the terms of the ceasefire by blocking aid from entering Gaza, drawing counter-threats of a resumption of fighting from Israel.

The Palestinian group agreed last month to hand over 33 Israeli hostages, including women, children and older men, in return for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, during a 42-dy truce in which Israeli forces would pull back from some of their positions in Gaza.

The truce was intended to open the way for a second phase of negotiations to return remaining hostages and complete the withdrawal of Israeli forces before a final end to the war and the rebuilding of Gaza.

Doubts about whether the deal would hold grew sharply after US President Donald Trump called for Palestinians to be moved permanently out of Gaza and for the enclave to be turned over to the United States to be redeveloped.

After 15 months of fighting, Gaza now lies largely in ruins and it remains unclear how it will be rebuilt.

Israel invaded the coastal enclave after Hamas-led gunmen attacked communities in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies, and taking more than 250 as hostages.

The Israeli campaign killed more than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to Palestinian health ministry figures, destroyed many of its buildings and left most of the population homeless.

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Arab World

Anxiety Clouds Easter for West Bank Christians

Residents of the West Bank town of Zababdeh say its church bells are often drowned out by the roar of Israeli air force jets headed for action nearby. - AFP
Residents of the West Bank town of Zababdeh say its church bells are often drowned out by the roar of Israeli air force jets headed for action nearby. - AFP
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Anxiety Clouds Easter for West Bank Christians

Residents of the West Bank town of Zababdeh say its church bells are often drowned out by the roar of Israeli air force jets headed for action nearby. - AFP
Residents of the West Bank town of Zababdeh say its church bells are often drowned out by the roar of Israeli air force jets headed for action nearby. - AFP

In the mainly Christian Palestinian town of Zababdeh, the runup to Easter has been overshadowed by nearby Israeli military operations, which have proliferated in the occupied West Bank alongside the Gaza war.

This year unusually Easter falls on the same weekend for all of the town's main Christian communities -- Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican --- and residents have attempted to busy themselves with holiday traditions like making date cakes or getting ready for the scout parade.

But their minds have been elsewhere.

Dozens of families from nearby Jenin have found refuge in Zababdeh from the continual Israeli military operations that have devastated the city and its adjacent refugee camp this year.

"The other day, the (Israeli) army entered Jenin, people were panicking, families were running to pick up their children," said Zababdeh resident Janet Ghanam.

"There is a constant fear, you go to bed with it, you wake up with it," the 57-year-old Anglican added, before rushing off to one of the last Lenten prayers before Easter.

Ghanam said her son had told her he would not be able to visit her for Easter this year, for fear of being stuck at the Israeli military roadblocks that have mushroomed across the territory.

Zabadeh's Anglican church was busy in the runup to Easter but across the West Bank Christian communities have been in sharp decline as people emigrate in search of a better life abroad.

Zabadeh looks idyllic, nestled in the hills of the northern West Bank, but the roar of Israeli air force jets sometimes drowns out the sound of its church bells.

"It led to a lot of people to think: 'Okay, am I going to stay in my home for the next five years?'" said Saleem Kasabreh, an Anglican deacon in the town.

"Would my home be taken away? Would they bomb my home?"

- 'Existential threat' -

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and in recent months far-right ministers in its coalition government have called for the annexation of swathes of the territory.

Kasabreh said this "existential threat" was compounded by constant "depression" at the news from Gaza, where the death toll from the Israel's response to Hamas's October 2023 attack now tops 51,000, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

Work has been hard to find for Zababdeh's mainly Christian residents since Israel rescinded Palestinian work permits following the October 2023 attack by Hamas that sparked the Gaza war.

Zababdeh has been spared the devastation wreaked on Gaza, but the mayor's office says nearly 450 townspeople lost their jobs in Israel when Palestinian work permits were rescinded after the Hamas attack.

"Israel had never completely closed us in the West Bank before this war," said 73-year-old farmer Ibrahim Daoud. "Nobody knows what will happen".

Many say they are stalked by the spectre of exile, with departures abroad fuelling fears that Christians may disappear from the Holy Land.

"People can't stay without work and life isn't easy," said 60-year-old maths teacher Tareq Ibrahim.

Mayor Ghassan Daibes echoed his point.

"For a Christian community to survive, there must be stability, security and decent living conditions. It's a reality, not a call for emigration," he said.

"But I´m speaking from lived experience: Christians used to make up 30 percent of the population in Palestine; today, they are less than one percent.

"And this number keeps decreasing. In my own family, I have three brothers abroad -- one in Germany, the other two in the United States."

Catholic priest Father Elias Tabban insists the hard times his congregation has been going though have deepened their faith.

Catholic priest Elias Tabban adopted a more stoical attitude, insisting his congregation's spirituality had never been so vibrant.

"Whenever the Church is in hard times... (that's when) you see the faith is growing," Tabban said.