Key Points
- Hamas has returned the bodies of four hostages to the Red Cross.
- Thousands gathered in Israel to mourn the Bibas family who were taken hostage by Hamas during the October 7 attack.
- The first phase of the 42-day truce is due to expire on Saturday.
Israel freed hundreds of Palestinian prisoners on Thursday, shortly after saying Palestinian militant group Hamas handed over coffins believed to contain the bodies of four hostages.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel had received the coffins of “four fallen hostages”, and a process to formally identify them had started. A kibbutz later confirmed two of them were members of its community.
In Gaza and the West Bank, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners freed by Israel arrived on buses accompanied by Red Cross vehicles.
More than 600 had been due to be released in the latest exchange, and Egypt’s state-linked Al-Qahera News said 97 of them arrived on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip.
It marked the last such exchange agreed .
The ceasefire came into effect on 19 January and has largely held, . But its first phase is due to end this week and the fate of its next phase, which aims to end the war, remains unclear.
The Palestinian military group said it has not received any proposals so far.
Hamas said on Thursday it was ready to start talks on the second phase, and the only way remaining hostages would be freed is through commitment to the ceasefire.
“We have cut off the path before the enemy’s false justifications, and it has no choice but to start negotiations for the second phase,” the group said on Telegram.
After days of impasse, Egyptian mediators secured the handover of the final four hostage bodies in the deal’s first phase, in exchange for 620 Palestinians either detained by Israeli forces in Gaza or jailed in Israel.
Israel had earlier refused to release prisoners on Saturday after Hamas handed over six hostages in a staged ceremony.
Hamas had been displaying living hostages and coffins carrying hostage remains on stage in front of a crowd in Gaza before handing them over, to .
The handover on Thursday did not include a Hamas ceremony.
The staged ceremonies in which living hostages and coffins carrying hostage remains were displayed on stage before a crowd in Gaza .
Bus carrying Palestinian prisoners arrives in Ramallah
The Palestinian detainees due to be released include 445 men and 24 women and minors arrested in Gaza, as well as 151 prisoners serving life sentences for deadly attacks on Israelis, according to a Hamas source.
A bus carrying a handful of the released Palestinian prisoners left Israel’s Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank and arrived in the Palestinian city of Ramallah shortly after, live footage showed.
The group got off the bus to cheers from hundreds congregated outside, with some of the released men — clad in green jackets and keffiyehs — hoisted aloft by the crowd.
The nearly 100 Palestinian prisoners handed over to Egypt will stay until another country accepts them, according to a Hamas source and Egyptian media.
Ambulances later arrived at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, early on Thursday, transporting freed Palestinians, who are set to undergo medical examination.
Palestinians in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday local time waiting for the release of their relatives from Israeli jails. Source: EPA / Atef Safadi
The first phase of the ceasefire , and the from some positions in Gaza as well as an influx of aid.
But with the 42-day truce due to expire on Saturday, it remains unclear whether an extension that could see more of the 59 remaining hostages go free will be agreed or whether negotiations can start on a second stage of the deal.
Israelis pay last respects to Bibas family
Meanwhile, Israelis mourned the family that symbolised the trauma their country suffered in the October 7 attack.
The funeral of the Bibas family was held on Wednesday (local time) following , his four-year-old brother Ariel and their mother Shiri last week.
The youngest hostages seized during the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel were killed weeks after they were abducted into the Gaza Strip.
Israel said it has intelligence and forensic evidence that shows the boys and their mother were killed by their captors using their bare hands. Hamas said they were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Thousands of people, some in tears, carrying blue and white Israeli flags or photographs of the family, walked in procession or waited as a convoy bearing the coffins drove past. Many were carrying orange balloons, a symbol of mourning for the hostages, matching the red hair of the two Bibas boys.
“It’s still not really registering,” said Tal Ben-Shimon, who joined mourners at what has come to be known as Hostages Square in Tel Aviv.
“They kind of represent all the families, the very young families, who were slaughtered on that day.”
Yarden Bibas, the father of the boys, who was captured separately from his family and released earlier this month, paid tribute in an emotional eulogy at their funeral.
“I hope you know I thought about you every day, every minute,” he said in an address carried live on Israeli television.
