Hamas has published the names of four female Israeli soldiers being held captive in Gaza who it says it plans to release this weekend as part of the continuing ceasefire agreement between the armed group and Israel.
In the hours following the release of the names, however, the office of Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to indicate it believed Hamas had breached the fragile ceasefire deal because the four names did not include that of the remaining female civilian hostage in Gaza.
Israeli media later reported the Israeli prime minister had consulted his security chiefs and decided to move forward, believing Hamas’s decision to release female soldiers before female civilians to be a violation of the ceasefire agreement but not one serious enough to end the process entirely.
The agreement requires Hamas in the first phase of the deal to release all the female civilian hostages before moving on to the category of female soldiers, followed by older hostages and then people who are seriously ill, in return for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
All those named by Hamas for the next exchange are female Israel Defense Forces (IDF) observation troops who were abducted in Nahal Oz during the group’s surprise attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, when their base was overrun.
“As part of the prisoners’ exchange deal, the [Ezzedine] al-Qassam Brigades decided to release tomorrow four women soldiers,” Abu Obeida, the spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing, said on Telegram.
The four women, who have been held by Hamas in Gaza for 15 months, were named as Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag.
Not on the list, however, was Arbel Yehoud, the last female civilian hostage being held in Gaza, who Israeli officials earlier this week said they expected to be released this weekend.
There has been speculation that Yehoud, who holds joint German and Israeli citizenship, is not being held by Hamas but by another militant faction, Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy said any violation of the terms of the ceasefire deal by Hamas was minor, particularly when the group had indicated that freeing hostages held by other factions was more difficult. “Both sides are building a case, should the other upend the agreement. But Israel’s case is weaker,” he said.
“Israel’s insistence that it will continue to prosecute the war despite signing a three-stage agreement deal is the most dangerous violation, along with its troubling escalation and provocations in the West Bank.”
According to the deal, Israel is now supposed to publish a list of which Palestinians being held in Israeli jails will be released this weekend.
The first exchange took place on Sunday with the release of three Israeli civilian hostages and 90 Palestinians.
Dozens of Israelis and hundreds of Palestinians are to be freed, while more humanitarian aid flows into Gaza.
Israel believes about a third, or possibly as many as half, of the more than 90 hostages still in Gaza have died. Hamas has not, however, released definitive information on how many captives are still alive or the names of those who have died.
In the first phase of the ceasefire deal, 33 hostages are expected to be released gradually in return for hundreds of Palestinians held by Israel.
The 33 to be released in the first phase will include women, children, sick people and those over 50 – almost all civilians, though the deal also commits Hamas to freeing all living female soldiers in phase one.
The four soldiers worked in an IDF surveillance unit near Nahal Oz on the border with Gaza, where the all-female “spotters” unit was tasked with watching activity in the strip.
Family members of other spotters taken hostage by Hamas militants during the 7 October attack said the soldiers had reported seeing suspicious activity in Gaza before the attack, including militants practising using parachutes, but that their concerns were repeatedly overruled.
Footage later circulated of the moment Palestinian militants took six female spotters captive at the Nahal Oz base, stirring outrage in Israel. It showed a woman, who appeared to be Naama Levy, facing a wall as a fighter bent down to tie her hands and ankles, her face bloodied.
Levy, aged 19 at the time of her capture, was pictured lined up next to several other female soldiers taken captive by a large group of fighters who shouted around them.
Hamas released a video of 19-year-old Liri Albag three weeks ago, stills of which indicated she was pale and appeared exhausted, as she called on the Israeli government to reach a ceasefire deal. Albag’s parents appealed to Netanyahu in response, telling him to “make decisions as if your own children were there”.
