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Hamas says it will free six living Israeli hostages on Saturday
Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya has said the militant group will release six living Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Three hostages had been expected to be freed on Saturday. It was not clear why Hamas changed the plan.
Of the 33 hostages set to be freed under phase one of the three-stage ceasefire deal, 19 have already been released and Israel says eight are dead. So the six to be released on Saturday are the final living hostages on the list of those to be released in the first phase of the deal.
Al Hayya said the six living hostages will include two Israelis, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who have been held for over a decade, the Times of Israel is reporting.
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Summary
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Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya has said the militant group will release six living Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
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Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar said Israel will begin negotiations on the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal this week.
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Israeli forces have withdrawn from border villages in southern Lebanon but have remained in five points inside the country for what the IDF describes as security purposes.
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In response, a spokesperson for the Lebanese presidency has just said Lebanon will consider any remaining Israeli presence on its lands an occupation and has the right to use all means to ensure a full Israeli withdrawal, as stipulated in the truce deal.
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Oxfam has warned that not enough aid is coming into Gaza, especially in the northern part of the territory and the southern Rafah governate devastated by Israeli bombardments during the war.
Heavy machinery and mobile homes ar getting held up at the Gaza-Egypt border, according to Al-Jazeera.
Only some of the humanitarian aid convoys, which carry food, water, and medical supplies, are making it through to Gaza. However, heavy machinery and mobile homes are still lined up on the Egyptian side of the border – according to the outlet.
Heavy machinery, such as cranes and bulldozers, are needed to remove the debris and rubble in Gaza’s destroyed neighbourhoods.
At least 200,000 mobile homes are required, however Al Jazeera understands that a significantly lower number has made it through the border.
Lebanon’s president Joseph Aoun has said Beirut was in contact with Washington and Paris, which helped broker the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire agreement, to pressure Israel to complete its full withdrawal from the country after the deadline passed.
“Lebanon is continuing its diplomatic contacts with the United States and France to complete Israel’s withdrawal from the remaining territories it occupied in the last war,” Aoun’s office said in a statement. Aoun has previously said that he “will not accept that a single Israeli remains on Lebanese territory”.
Under the agreement, the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers are supposed to patrol a buffer zone after the complete Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.
As we reported in an earlier post, Israeli forces remain in five key strategic hilltop points despite the ceasefire deal with Hezbollah. Lebanon’s three top officials – the country’s president, prime minister and parliament speaker - in a joint statement said that Israel’s continued presence at the five locations was in violation of the ceasefire agreement. They have called on the UN security council to take action to force a complete Israeli withdrawal.
Qatar, a key mediator in negotiations between Israel and Hamas, has insisted that Palestinian people should be the ones to decide the territory’s future after the war is over.
It comes after Donald Trump threatened to “take over” the Gaza Strip and displace Palestinians from their homeland, a proposal Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is “committed” to despite widespread opposition from Arab countries, including Qatar.
“From our perspective, this is a Palestinian question on what happens post this conflict,” Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari told journalists when asked about Israel’s stated objective to eliminate Hamas in a Doha news conference.
“It is a Palestinian question on who represents the Palestinians in an official capacity and also the political groups and parties in the political sphere,” he added.
A report by Sky News Arabia on Sunday night – which we have not yet verified – said that Hamas, which has been the sole ruler in the Gaza Strip since 2007, was prepared to hand over control of the territory to its West Bank-based rival, the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority (PA), following pressure from mediator Egypt.
Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya said the “Bibas family” would be included in the handover of four bodies on Thursday, without elaborating.
Yarden Bibas, 34, his wife, Shiri, 33, and children Ariel, now aged 5, and Kfir, now 2, were seized from their home near Gaza during the Hamas-led 7 October attack on southern Israel in 2023 and taken hostage. Israel has said it is extremely concerned about the condition of Shiri and her two children but has not confirmed their deaths.
Yarden Bibas was released at the start of the month along with two other hostages in exchange for 183 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, as part of the ceasefire deal.
Hamas says it will free six living Israeli hostages on Saturday
Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya has said the militant group will release six living Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Three hostages had been expected to be freed on Saturday. It was not clear why Hamas changed the plan.
Of the 33 hostages set to be freed under phase one of the three-stage ceasefire deal, 19 have already been released and Israel says eight are dead. So the six to be released on Saturday are the final living hostages on the list of those to be released in the first phase of the deal.
Al Hayya said the six living hostages will include two Israelis, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who have been held for over a decade, the Times of Israel is reporting.
A UN envoy claims Israel is violating a 2006 security council resolution on Lebanon which ended a past Israel-Hezbollah war, according to Al Jazeera.
Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and the Unifil peacekeeping force have said in a joint statement that at “the end of the period set” for both Israel’s withdrawal and the Lebanese army’s deployment, a further delay is not what they “hoped” would happen and is a violation of a 2006 security council resolution that ended a past Israel-Hezbollah war.
“The new Lebanese president and government are determined to extend state authority completely in all areas in the south and consolidate stability to prevent conflict from returning to Lebanon. They deserve unwavering support in this endeavour,” they said.
As reported earlier, Israel’s army has left southern Lebanese villages but remains in five positions, a Lebanese security source told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Israeli troops pulled out from Yaroun, Maroun al-Ras, Blida, Meiss el-Jabal, Hula, Markaba, Odaisseh, Kfar Kila, and Wazzani, according to reporting from the Lebanese national news agency, which said Lebanese soldiers and UN Interim Force in Lebanon forces (Unifil) have been sent to the “liberated towns”.
Arab League summit moved to 4 March
An Arab League summit planned to discuss Trump’s proposal to take over Gaza has been moved to 4 March.
The Egyptian foreign ministry said the new date was agreed with Arab League members as part of “substantive and logistical preparations” for the summit, according to Agence France-Presse.
The meeting was called in response to US president Donald Trump’s proposal to take over the war-battered Gaza Strip and move its Palestinian inhabitants elsewhere, including to Egypt and Jordan.
The summit was originally scheduled for 27 February, according to AP News. Trump’s Gaza plan sent shockwaves across the Arab world, prompting a rare show of unity among Arab nations to block it.
Benjamin Netanyahu is making “tremendous efforts” to release six living hostages and the bodies of four others this week, an Israeli official source told AFP. The news agency also reports that mediators were working hard to ensure “the bodies of several Israeli prisoners (be delivered) before Friday” and to increase the number of living hostages to be released on Saturday.
Israeli officials have said they believe eight of the 33 people to be returned in the ceasefire’s first phase are dead. Hamas is gradually releasing the 33 hostages in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinians detained in Israeli jails. Under the agreement, Israeli forces have pulled back from most parts of Gaza and allowed an increase in humanitarian aid.
Israel is preparing to receive six hostages on Saturday, in addition to a number of captives’ bodies to be delivered from Gaza on Thursday, according to reports.
The truce agreement appeared in danger of collapse earlier this month after Hamas announced there would be an indefinite delay to the release of (some of the) hostages owing to Israel’s violations of the deal.
The Palestinian militant group accused Israel of delaying the return of Palestinians to northern Gaza, blocking the arrival of aid and attacking civilians. Soon after, US President Donald Trump suggested that Israel should demand that the remaining hostages be freed by midday on Saturday 15 February or “all hell is going to break out”.
The immediate crisis appeared to recede with Hamas subsequently confirming the three Israelis hostages would be freed, although a great deal of uncertainty remains over the longer-term prospects of the ceasefire agreement.
Here is more of Gideon Saar’s comments about Israel planning to open negotiations on the second phase of the three-stage Gaza ceasefire agreement that came into effect on January 19 2025 (we are still in the first phase).
“Until this Saturday, there was a threat by Hamas to break the agreement,” he told journalists in the briefing.
“They regretted, eventually. But now, yesterday night, in the security cabinet meeting we decided to open negotiations on the second phase. It will happen this week.”
When asked what will happen when phase one ends at the beginning of March, if there is no decision on what happens in phase 2, he said there are “three options”. The first is an agreement on phase 2, the second is that negotiations won’t lead anywhere and they will take military options. The third is to see a “constructive dialogue of getting to an agreement” and potentially making the “timeframe [go] longer.”
He also said a “deradicalisation” process would be needed to take negotiations further. Saar said:
The problem is that what is needed is a deradicalisation process and a deep one. According with our experience with the Palestinian authorities for 30 years, they… were poisoning the minds of the next generation. They were just as bad as Hamas. The issue is the policies, with whom you can promote a strategy of deradicalisation.
Israel to begin negotiations on second phase of Gaza ceasefire deal - foreign minister
During his press briefing earlier today, Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar said Israel will begin negotiations on the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal this week.
“We had yesterday night a security cabinet meeting. We decided to open negotiations on the second phase. It will happen this week,” Saar said of the talks, which were originally supposed to start on 3 February.
Negotiations on a second phase of the agreement, which mediators had hoped would agree the release of the remaining hostages as well as the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, were supposed to be already underway in Doha, but Qatar has said the talks have not officially started yet.
Saar also said that Israel demanded the “complete demilitarisation of Gaza”, and would “not accept the continued presence of Hamas or any other terrorist groups” in the Palestinian territory.
