Hamas and Israel will conduct their next swap of the Gaza ceasefire on Saturday with three Israelis including the father of the youngest hostages to be freed in return for 90 people held in Israeli jails.
After holding them hostage for 15 months, militants in Gaza began releasing captives as the first phase of a ceasefire with Israel took effect on January 19.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants have so far handed over 15 hostages to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, many of them women and minors.
Israeli campaign group, the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, named the captives to be released on Saturday as Yarden Bibas, Keith Siegel, who also has US citizenship, and Ofer Kalderon, who also holds French nationality.
The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed it had received the names of the three hostages to be released.
In exchange, Israel will free 90 prisoners, nine of whom are serving life sentences, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said.
During their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which started the Gaza war, militants took a total of 251 people hostage that day.
Of those, 79 remain in Gaza, including at least 34 the military says are dead.
After the swap takes place on Saturday, Gaza’s key Rafah border crossing with Egypt is set to reopen, according to a Hamas official.
“The mediators informed Hamas of Israel’s approval to open Rafah crossing tomorrow, Saturday, after the completion of the fourth batch of prisoner exchange,” the Hamas official said.
Evacuations of the injured would also take place at the crossing as per the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release agreement.
The Rafah crossing was a vital entry point for humanitarian aid deliveries into Gaza before the Israeli military seized the Palestinian side in May.
The arrangements for hostage handovers in Gaza have sometimes been chaotic, particularly for the most recent handover in the southern city of Khan Yunis, which produced scenes that the Israeli prime minister condemned as “shocking”.
Israel briefly delayed Thursday’s prisoner release in protest and the ICRC urged all parties to improve security.
Later on Thursday, Israeli authorities released 110 inmates from Ofer prison, including high-profile former militant commander Zakaria Zubeidi, 49, who was given a hero’s welcome in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
The fragile ceasefire hinges on the release of a total of 33 hostages in exchange for around 1,900 people, mostly Palestinians, in Israeli jails.
Negotiations for a second phase of the deal are set to start on Monday, according to a timeline provided by an Israeli official.
