Hamas has handed over the bodies of four hostages, and Israel has released more than 600 Palestinian prisoners, as the five-week-old ceasefire appeared to get back on track after a breach that had brought fears of a return to war in Gaza.
The bodies of the hostages were transferred to the Red Cross in southern Gaza and driven to the border point at Kerem Shalom at about midnight, when immediate identity checks were carried out using dental records. By dawn on Thursday morning, three out of the four had been positively identified, according to a group representing the hostages.
Meanwhile, buses carrying Palestinian prisoners arrived in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Khan Younis in Gaza and in Egypt, where 97 of the prisoners were deported. They will stay there until accepted by another country, Israeli officials said.
Ambulances brought freed Palestinians to the European hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, where they were set to undergo medical examination. Prisoners freed in previous exchanges have had limbs amputated while in Israeli custody and many were extremely emaciated.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Information Office said on Thursday morning that 642 prisoners had been released overnight in the seventh phase of the Gaza ceasefire, of whom 46 were women or minors. If confirmed, it means Israel freed more Palestinians than scheduled, after a four-day breach in the ceasefire agreement.
On Saturday, Israel had been due to free 602 prisoners and detainees in exchange for six surviving hostages, but the government suspended the transfer of the prisoners at the last moment, in protest at what it complained were the propaganda ceremonies Hamas staged to hand over hostages and the remains of the Israelis who had been killed while in captivity.
Since then, Hamas agreed to hand over the four hostages’ bodies away from the cameras, and in return Netanyahu’s government said it would proceed with the prisoner releases, but implemented a new system of identity checks, first at the point of transfer in Kerem Shalom using dental records, followed by a more thorough check at a national forensics laboratory. The new measures followed an incident on Saturday when Hamas delivered the wrong body, apparently in error.
Hamas said in a statement early on Thursday that the only way the remaining hostages would be freed was through commitment to the Gaza ceasefire deal. It said it had abided by the agreement and was ready to start talks on a second phase.
The bodies handed over to the Red Cross just after midnight on Thursday morning were named by Hamas as Shlomo Mantzur, Tsachi Idan, Ohad Yahalomi and Itzhak Elgarat. The IDF said the identities of the bodies had not yet been verified.
Relatives of Idan said that he was alive when he was taken hostage by Hamas on 7 October 2023, according to a statement released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the group representing families of the hostages.
“Since Tsachi was kidnapped, we received several signs of life, and in the previous deal last November, Tsachi was alive and expected to be released,” wrote the family. “We are still waiting for the much-needed certainty, which we can only receive after his arrival in Israel and after all necessary examinations are conducted by the authorised state authorities.”
The latest exchange came as the UN human rights chief accused Israel on Wednesday of showing an unprecedented disregard for human rights in its military actions in Gaza and said Hamas had violated international law.
“Nothing justifies the appalling manner in which Israel has conducted its military operations in Gaza, which consistently breached international law,” said Volker Türk, while presenting a report on the human rights situation in Gaza, the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem to the human rights council in Geneva.
“The level of devastation in Gaza is massive – from homes, to hospitals to schools,” Türk said, adding that “restrictions imposed by Israel … have created a humanitarian catastrophe”.
Türk added: “Hamas has indiscriminately fired projectiles into Israeli territory – amounting to war crimes.”
The exchange and the resumption of the ceasefire deal follow a national day of grief in Israel with thousands of Israelis waving flags, holding candles and singing the national anthem, lining the route of a funeral procession for two small children and their mother who were held hostage and died in captivity in Gaza.
The bodies of the Bibases, who Hamas said were killed by airstrikes, were handed over last week. An Israeli autopsy report ruled the children had been murdered by their captors and then mutilated to simulate wounds from bombing.
The funeral was held in the town of Tzohar, near the border with Gaza and Nir Oz kibbutz, where the family lived. The ceremony was private but mourners lined the road from the central city of Rishon LeZion holding Israeli flags and yellow banners, symbol of the hostage families and supporters, to watch the cortege go by.
With the transfer of the four hostages’ bodies and the release of the Palestinians, the two side will have completed the obligations for the first six-week phase of the ceasefire. The second phase, due to start at the weekend, includes the release of all remaining hostages, and the complete withdrawal of the Israeli military from Gaza, but negotiations on the details are yet to begin just a few days before the weekend deadline.
One possibility being studied to keep the ceasefire alive while the second phase is being negotiated is to extend the first phase, but it is yet to be agreed whether more hostages and prisoners would be released during the extension.
