CAIRO (AP) — A top Hamas official says the militant group will free six living Israeli hostages on Saturday and return the bodies of four others on Thursday, a surprise acceleration in releases apparently in trade for Israel’s allowing mobile homes and construction equipment into the devastated Gaza Strip.
The six are the last living hostages set to be freed during the ceasefire’s first phase in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
The announcement by Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya, in prerecorded remarks released Tuesday, said the dead would include the “Bibas family” — two young boys and their mother who for many Israelis have come to symbolize the plight of those taken captive. Israel has not confirmed their deaths, and the prime minister's office urged the public not to distribute “photos, names and rumors” after the announcement by Hamas.
"In the past few hours, we have been in turmoil,” surviving members of the Bibas family said in a statement released Tuesday by a group representing the relatives of hostages. “Until we receive definitive confirmation, our journey is not over.”
Israel has long expressed grave concern about Shiri Bibas and her sons, Kfir and Ariel, who Hamas claimed had been killed in an Israeli airstrike early in the war. Husband and father Yarden Bibas was kidnapped separately and released this month.
Kfir, who was 9 months old at the time, was the youngest hostage taken in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that killed 1,200 in Israel and ignited the war. A video of the abduction showed Shiri swaddling her redheaded boys in a blanket and being whisked away by armed men.
The six living hostages slated for release are Eliya Cohen, Tal Shoham, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert, Hisham Al-Sayed, and Avera Mengistu, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said Tuesday. Cohen, 27, Shem Tov, 22, and Wenkert, 23, were abducted from a music festival. Shoham was taken from the hard-hit community of Kibbutz Beeri. Al-Sayed, 36, and Mengistu, 39, have both been held since crossing into Gaza years before the Oct. 7 attack.
The release of all six this week would mark an acceleration of the ceasefire deal, which called for Hamas to release three living hostages Saturday, with three more to be freed a week later. When the deal was made, it called only for the bodies of the dead to be returned by the end of the first phase.
Israel is expected to continue releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including many serving life sentences for deadly attacks, in exchange for the hostages. Others were detained without charge. During the first phase, Israel is also due to release all women and children seized from Gaza since the war began.
The warring sides have yet to negotiate the second and more difficult phase, in which Hamas would release dozens more hostages in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal.
Equipment allowed in
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to allow long-requested mobile homes and construction equipment into Gaza as part of efforts to accelerate the hostages' release.
Hamas last week threatened to hold up releases, citing the refusal to allow in mobile homes and heavy equipment among other alleged violations of the truce.
Israel began allowing entry of rubble-removing equipment Tuesday, according to an Associated Press journalist in southern Gaza and Egypt’s state-run media. The AP journalist saw two bulldozers clearing rubble in an area near the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing. An Egyptian driver told AP that dozens of bulldozers and tractors were at another crossing, awaiting Israeli permission to enter.
Rebuilding Gaza could cost $53.2 billion, according to a report released Tuesday by the World Bank, the U.N. and the European Union. The report identified almost $30 billion in damage from the war, nearly half reflecting destruction of homes.
Palestinians want to stay in their homeland
The ceasefire that began in mid-January paused fighting that has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants.
But Israel's government still says it wants to eliminate Hamas as a military and governing force in Gaza. And U.S. President Donald Trump ’s proposal to permanently remove Gaza's 2 million residents and redevelop the territory, though rejected by the Arab world and the Palestinians, has stirred even more uncertainty. Egypt is working on a counter-plan to rebuild without moving Palestinians.
“We will not leave our country, no matter what happens,” Muhammad Shaaban, a resident of Jabaliya in northern Gaza, told the AP. The area was hit by some of the fiercest bombardment of the war and most of its buildings and infrastructure was destroyed or damaged.
Mohammad Bahjat, also from Jabaliya, said Trump’s proposal is “unacceptable” and that he and his family would resist being expelled.
Israel has embraced the plan, and it and the Trump administration have emphasized they share the same goals in the war.
Israelis were horrified by the sight of three emaciated hostages in an earlier release this month, and revelations about hostages being held alone, barefoot or in chains have increased the pressure on Netanyahu's government to push ahead with the ceasefire’s next phase. A number of Palestinians released from Israeli prisons have shown emaciation, and some have reported abuses including beatings.
Fears fighting will resume
The deal's first phase calls for Hamas to gradually release 33 Israeli hostages, eight of whom are believed to be dead. So far, 19 living Israeli hostages have been released in the current phase, in addition to five Thai farmworkers who were abducted. If this week's releases go as planned, four bodies will remain and are set to be returned next week.
Hamas-led militants would still hold some 60 captives, around half believed to be dead.
The ceasefire's current phase runs until the beginning of March, and there are fears that fighting will resume. Talks on the second phase were to start early this month.
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Melzer reported from Nahariya, Israel.
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Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Samy Magdy And Natalie Melzer, The Associated Press
