Hamas Names 6 Hostages it Will Release on Saturday

FILE PHOTO: People walk past the rubble of destroyed buildings, in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, January 30, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: People walk past the rubble of destroyed buildings, in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, January 30, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas/File Photo
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Hamas Names 6 Hostages it Will Release on Saturday

FILE PHOTO: People walk past the rubble of destroyed buildings, in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, January 30, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: People walk past the rubble of destroyed buildings, in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, January 30, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas/File Photo

The armed wing of militant group Hamas said on Friday it will release Israeli hostages Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov, Tal Shoham, Omer Wenkert, Hisham al-Sayed and Avera Mengisto on Saturday.
Hisham al-Sayed and Avera Mengisto are civilians, who entered Gaza a decade ago and have been held there since.

Hamas also said on Friday it would look into the possibility of an error or that human remains were mixed due to Israeli airstrikes, after the Israeli military said one of the bodies released by Hamas on Thursday did not belong to any of the hostages held in Gaza.
The group's official statement echoed that of one earlier from the group's Gaza government media office director Ismail Al-Thawabta.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would make Hamas pay for failing to release the body of hostage Shiri Bibas as agreed, in the latest potential threat to the month-old Gaza ceasefire.
Israeli specialists said one of four bodies handed over by Hamas on Thursday was an unidentified woman and not Bibas.
Netanyahu accused Hamas of acting "in an unspeakably cynical manner" by placing the body of a Gaza woman in the coffin instead of Bibas, who was kidnapped along with her two sons, Kfir and Ariel, and her husband, Yarden, during the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The bodies of Kfir and Ariel were among those handed over and identified.
"We will act with determination to bring Shiri home along with all our hostages - both living and dead - and ensure Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and evil violation of the agreement," Netanyahu said in a video statement.
Al-Thawabta said Shiri Bibas' remains appear to have been mixed with other human remains after being buried in the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike.
"Netanyahu himself issued the orders for the direct and merciless bombing, and he bears full responsibility for killing her and her children," he said in a statement.



Trump’s Nominee for Ambassador to Israel Avoids Direct Answers on West Bank Annexation

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, US President Donald Trump's nominee to be ambassador to Israel, testifies during his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 25, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images/AFP)
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, US President Donald Trump's nominee to be ambassador to Israel, testifies during his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 25, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images/AFP)
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Trump’s Nominee for Ambassador to Israel Avoids Direct Answers on West Bank Annexation

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, US President Donald Trump's nominee to be ambassador to Israel, testifies during his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 25, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images/AFP)
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, US President Donald Trump's nominee to be ambassador to Israel, testifies during his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 25, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images/AFP)

Mike Huckabee, facing a US Senate hearing for his confirmation as President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Israel, is facing close questioning from Democrats on his views on the potential for Israeli annexation of the West Bank, but he avoided giving direct answers.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, asked Huckabee whether he thought it would be wrong for a Jewish settler to push a Palestinian family off land they own in the West Bank.

Huckabee, a well-known evangelical Christian, stood by past statements that Israel has a “Biblical mandate” to the land. He also responded by saying he believed in the “law being followed” and “clarity,” but also that “purchasing the land” would be a “legitimate transaction.”

Huckabee also said that any Palestinians living in an annexed West Bank would have “security” and “opportunity,” but wouldn’t answer Van Hollen’s questions about whether they would have the same legal and political rights as Jewish people.

Four pro-Palestinian demonstrators interrupted the hearing in the Senate to decry Huckabee’s ardent support for Israel.

One blew a shofar, a ram’s horn used for Jewish religious purposes, and another shouted, “I am a proud American Jew!” then “Let Palestinians live!”

Police quickly grabbed the protesters, but their shouts could still be momentarily heard in the Senate hallway.

Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas and one-time Republican presidential hopeful, has taken stances on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that sharply contradict longstanding US policy in the region.

He has spoken favorably in the past about Israel’s right to annex the occupied West Bank and has long been opposed to the idea of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinian people.

In an interview last year, he went even further, saying that he doesn’t even believe in referring to the Arab descendants of people who lived in British-controlled Palestine as “Palestinians.”