On Thursday, Hamas intends to free three Israeli hostages, including a civilian and a dual American citizen whose status last week threatened to jeopardize the tenuous ceasefire.
According to information obtained by the Hostages Families Forum, Hamas will free the three Israelis and five Thai individuals who were also kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023, incident.
Arbel Yehoud, 29, is one of the prisoners the terrorist organization intends to free. Israeli officials had anticipated that Yehoud would be released last weekend as part of the ceasefire agreement’s first phase, which calls for the release of 33 hostages in total.
It is also anticipated that 20-year-old Agam Berger and 80-year-old Gadi Moses will be released.
Berger came at Nahal Oz facility just two days before the Oct. 7 attack to function as an observer. She was taken prisoner along with several other observers who have since been freed.
Moses was residing at Kibbutz Nir Oz, where he lectured on agriculture and was one of the original members of the kibbutz’s vineyard. The hostage organization reported that his partner was slain in the Oct. 7 incident.
In accordance with the ceasefire deal, 50 Palestinian prisoners and detainees have been released for captured soldiers and 30 have been released for civilian hostages.
On Saturday, Israel prevented Palestinian civilians from returning to their homes in northern Gaza, putting the truce between Israel and Hamas in peril. Israeli officials said that because Hamas had not released civilian Yehoud before captured troops, it had broken the ceasefire agreement.
In a similar vein, Hamas charged Israel with breaching the agreement, raising fears that the ceasefire that has put an end to 15 months of brutal conflict in Gaza may be in jeopardy.
To calm tensions over the agreement, Qatar, a key mediator in ceasefire talks, said on Monday that Yehoud and two other prisoners would be released before Friday.
Yehoud and her 27-year-old lover, Ariel Cunio, were abducted from their home in kibbutz Nir Oz, which was founded by her grandparents. After a journey to South America, the couple had just returned to Israel.
In September, Israel concluded that Dolev Yehoud, 25, Yehoud’s brother, had been assassinated by Hamas on the day of the strikes and that his body had never left Israeli land. At first, it was thought that Yehoud had been carried hostage into Gaza.
Cunio and his 34-year-old brother David are still detained in Gaza, and neither is anticipated to be freed within the first stage of the agreement.
A Middle Eastern official told NBC News on Monday that the second round of negotiations is expected to start in Qatar next week, but specifics of the second phase of the agreement have not yet been finalized.
On Saturday, dozens of Palestinian detainees and inmates are likely to be exchanged for three more captives.
Many Israelis are hoping that Kfir Bibas, the youngest hostage still held captive by Hamas, will be one of them.
Along with his 5-year-old brother, Ariel, and their parents, Yarden and Shiri Bibas, Kfir, now 2 years old, was taken hostage during the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 onslaught when he was just under 9 months old.
A Middle Eastern person briefed on the situation told NBC News Monday that Hamas has told Israel that eight of the group are dead, with 26 Israeli hostages still scheduled to be released as part of the ceasefire’s initial phase.
A representative for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu subsequently attested that these figures aligned with data obtained by Israeli intelligence.
Hamas was thought to have revealed the number of hostages, both dead and living, for the first time.
Earlier this month, Hamas released the first three hostages—Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher, and dual British citizen Emily Damari—in return for 90 Palestinian detainees and inmates, all of whom were women and children under the age of 19.
Later on Saturday, 200 Palestinian inmates and prisoners—some serving life sentences after being found guilty of deadly attacks—were exchanged for the release of four female Israeli soldiers.
According to Israeli officials, the Hamas-led terror strikes on October 7, 2023, killed almost 1,200 persons and took 251 hostages into Gaza.
According to Palestinian health experts, Israel’s murderous offensive in Gaza has killed over 47,000 people in the more than 15 months since it began.
Because it is difficult to quantify the dead during a battle, and because thousands of people are thought to be missing and buried beneath wreckage, researchers estimate that the death toll is probably much higher than official estimates indicate.