Hamas to free 6 Israeli hostages, hand over 4 bodies
CAIRO — 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.
‘Journey’s not over’
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.
Living hostages
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.
