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Hamas To Release Four Israeli Hostages In Truce Swap

Published

7 months ago

January 25, 2025

Hamas is set to release four Israeli women soldiers held hostage since its October 7, 2023 attack on Saturday, under a truce deal in the Gaza war that is also expected to see a second group of Palestinian prisoners freed.

Israel confirmed on Friday that it had received a list of names of hostages who are due to return home, though neither side has specified how many Palestinians will be released from Israeli detention if everything goes to plan.

According to the Israeli Hostage and Missing Families Forum, the women due for release are Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag.

Albag turned 19 while in captivity, while the others are all now 20 years old.

The exchange is part of a fragile ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that took effect last Sunday and is intended to pave the way to a permanent end to the conflict.

Mediators Qatar and the United States announced the agreement days ahead of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, and he has since claimed credit for securing it after months of fruitless negotiations.

Abu Obeida, the spokesman for the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, said on Telegram Friday that “as part of the prisoners’ exchange deal, the Qassam brigades decided to release tomorrow four women soldiers.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed it had received the names through mediators.

Palestinian sources told AFP the releases could begin before noon (1000 GMT), though neither Hamas nor Israel has issued a statement on expected timings.

According to Israel’s prison service, some of the Palestinians released will go to Gaza, with the rest to return to the occupied West Bank.

Families of hostages held in Gaza since Hamas staged the deadliest attack in Israeli history awaited the return of their loved ones after 15 months of agony.

“The worry and fear that the deal will not be implemented to the end is eating away at all of us,” said Vicky Cohen, the mother of hostage Nimrod Cohen.

In Gaza, families displaced by more than a year of war longed to return home, but many found only rubble where houses once stood.

“Even if we thought about returning, there is no place for us to put our tents because of the destruction,” Theqra Qasem, a displaced woman, told AFP.

– Three phases –

The ceasefire agreement should be implemented in three phases.

During the first 42-day phase that began last Sunday, 33 hostages Israel believed were still alive should be returned in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Three hostages — Emily Damari, Romi Gonen and Doron Steinbrecher — have already returned home.

Ninety Palestinians, mostly women and minors, were released in exchange.

The next phase should see negotiations for a more permanent end to the war, while the last phase should see the reconstruction of Gaza and the return of the bodies of dead hostages.

During their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Hamas militants took 251 hostages, 91 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military has confirmed are dead.

The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory response has killed at least 47,283 people in Gaza, a majority of civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, figures which the UN considers reliable.

– Return to the north –

Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau based in Qatar, on Friday told AFP that Palestinians displaced by the war to southern Gaza should be able to begin returning to the north following Saturday’s releases.

Hundreds of truckloads of aid have entered Gaza since the ceasefire began, but its distribution inside the devastated territory remains a huge challenge.

The needs are enormous, particularly in the north, where Israel kept up a major operation right up to the eve of the truce.

In hunger-stricken makeshift shelters set up in former schools, bombed-out houses and cemeteries, hundreds of thousands lack even plastic sheeting to protect from winter rains and biting winds, aid workers say.

AFP

Related Topics:Hamas Israel Hostages Israeli hostage

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NGO Says Starving Gaza Children Too Weak To Cry

Published

11 hours ago

August 27, 2025

Editor

The head of Save the Children described in horrific detail on Wednesday the slow agony of starving children in Gaza, saying they are so weak they do not even cry.

Addressing a Security Council meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the president of the international charity, Inger Ashing, said famine — declared by the UN last week to be happening in Gaza — is not just a dry technical term.

“When there is not enough food, children become acutely malnourished, and then they die slowly and painfully. This, in simple terms, is what famine is,” said Ashing.

She went on to describe what happens when children die of hunger over the course of several weeks, as the body first consumes its own fat to survive, and when that is gone, literally consumes itself as it eats muscles and vital organs.

“Yet our clinics are almost silent. Now, children do not have the strength to speak or even cry out in agony. They lie there, emaciated, quite literally wasting away,” said Ashing.

She insisted that aid groups have been warning loudly that famine was coming as Israel prevented food and other essentials from entering Gaza over the course of two years of war triggered by the Hamas attack of October 2023.

“Everyone in this room has a legal and moral responsibility to act to stop this atrocity,” said Ashing.

The United Nations officially declared famine in Gaza on Friday, blaming what it called the systematic obstruction of aid by Israel during more than 22 months of war.

A UN-backed hunger monitor called the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative said famine was affecting 500,000 people in the Gaza governorate, which covers about a fifth of the Palestinian territory, including Gaza City.

The IPC projected that the famine would expand by the end of September to cover around two-thirds of Gaza.
AFP

Headline

Again, Russia Claims Another Village In Ukraine’s Region

Published

3 days ago

August 25, 2025

Editor

The Russian army Monday claimed to have captured another village in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, moving deeper into Ukrainian territory as peace efforts stall.

Russian forces are slowly but steadily gaining ground in costly battles for largely devastated areas in eastern and central Ukraine, normally with few inhabitants or intact buildings left.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had seized the settlement of Zaporizke in the region, which Russian troops recently advanced into for the first time in the three-and-a-half-year offensive.

Kyiv denies that Russian troops have gained a foothold in the Dnipropetrovsk region, an important industrial hub.

After another push by US President Donald Trump to broker a Ukraine-Russia summit, hopes for peace dimmed when Russia last week ruled out any immediate meeting between presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky.

The central region of Dnipropetrovsk has previously been largely spared from fighting that has ravaged swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine, until Russia said its forces broke through in July.

Dnipropetrovsk is not one of the five Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea — that Moscow has publicly claimed as Russian territory.

Ukraine said Russia had launched over 100 drones Monday, killing a 37-year old civilian driver and wounding two people in the northeastern Sumy region.

Moscow said Kyiv had launched about two dozen drones targeting western Russia

Headline

US Comedian Reggie Carroll Shot Dead In Mississippi

Published

3 days ago

August 25, 2025

Editor

A United States comedian, Reginald “Reggie” Carroll, has been shot dead in Southaven, Mississippi.

The 52-year-old Carroll, widely known as the Knockout King of Comedy, was reportedly killed on Wednesday, August 20, 2025, after sustaining multiple gunshot wounds.

The Southaven Police Department confirmed the incident in a Facebook statement on Saturday.

“Southaven officers located one male victim suffering from gunshot wounds.

“The officers and medical personnel provided life saving techniques but the individual succumbed to his injuries,” the statement partly read.

The victim was later identified as Carroll, a Baltimore native.

Police said one suspect was arrested and charged with his murder.

“One male is in custody and has been charged with the murder of Reginald Carroll.

“Our thoughts are with the family of Mr. Carroll.

“Thank you to the community for their patience and understanding,” the department added.

The police further assured that there was no ongoing threat to residents, describing the case as “an isolated shooting.”

Carroll, who built his career in stand-up comedy, gained national recognition touring with Katt Williams and headlining his own showcase, Knockout Kings of Comedy.

He also featured in the 2000 edition of Showtime at the Apollo, appeared on the UPN sitcom The Parkers alongside Mo’Nique and Countess Vaughn, and starred in the 2022 television film Rent & Go.

In 2023, he produced the stand-up special Knockout Kings of Comedy.

The Southaven Police Department disclosed that an investigation into his death is ongoing.