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.



Gaza Civil Defense Describes Medic Killings as 'Summary Executions'

A video recovered from the phone of one of the slain aid workers, released by the Red Crescent, appeared to contradict the Israeli military's account - AFP
A video recovered from the phone of one of the slain aid workers, released by the Red Crescent, appeared to contradict the Israeli military's account - AFP
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Gaza Civil Defense Describes Medic Killings as 'Summary Executions'

A video recovered from the phone of one of the slain aid workers, released by the Red Crescent, appeared to contradict the Israeli military's account - AFP
A video recovered from the phone of one of the slain aid workers, released by the Red Crescent, appeared to contradict the Israeli military's account - AFP

Gaza's civil defense agency on Monday accused the Israeli military of carrying out "summary executions" in the killing of 15 rescue workers last month, rejecting the findings of an internal probe by the army.

The medics and other rescue workers were killed when responding to distress calls near Gaza's southern city of Rafah early on March 23, days into Israel's renewed offensive in the Hamas-run territory, AFP reported.

Among those killed were eight Red Crescent staff members, six from the Gaza civil defense rescue agency and one employee of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, according to the UN humanitarian agency OCHA and Palestinian rescuers.

"The video filmed by one of the paramedics proves that the Israeli occupation's narrative is false and demonstrates that it carried out summary executions," Mohammed Al-Mughair, a civil defense official, told AFP, accusing Israel of seeking to "circumvent" its obligations under international law.

Following the shooting, the Red Crescent released a video recovered from the phone of one of the victims. It does not show executions, but it does directly contradict the version of events initially put forward by the Israeli military.

In particular, the video shows clearly that the ambulances were travelling with sirens, flashing lights and headlights on. The military had claimed the ambulances were travelling "suspiciously" and without lights.

- Operational failures -

The incident drew international condemnation, including concern about possible war crimes from UN human rights commissioner Volker Turk.

An Israeli military investigation into the incident released on Sunday "found no evidence to support claims of execution" or "indiscriminate fire" by its troops, but admitted to operational failures and said it was firing a field commander.

It said six of those killed were militants, revising an earlier claim that nine of the men were fighters.

The dead, who were buried in sand by Israeli forces, were only recovered several days after the attack from what the UN human rights agency OCHA described as a "mass grave".

The Palestine Red Crescent Society denounced the report as "full of lies".

"It is invalid and unacceptable, as it justifies the killing and shifts responsibility to a personal error in the field command when the truth is quite different," Nebal Farsakh, spokesperson for the Red Crescent, told AFP.

The Israeli investigation said there were three shooting incidents in the area on that day.

In the first, soldiers shot at what they believed to be a Hamas vehicle.

In the second, around an hour later, troops fired "on suspects emerging from a fire truck and ambulances", the military said.

The probe determined that the fire in the first two incidents resulted from an "operational misunderstanding by the troops".

In the third incident, the troops fired at a UN vehicle "due to operational errors in breach of regulations", the military said.