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Hamas To Release Four Israeli Hostages In Truce Swap

Published

7 months ago

January 25, 2025

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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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Headline

42 Killed In Israeli Attacks, Says Gaza’s Civil Defense

Published

10 hours ago

August 24, 2025

Editor

Gaza’s civil defence agency reported at least 42 people killed in Israeli attacks on Sunday, as the Israeli army prepared for a new assault on the Palestinian territory’s largest city.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said there had been several air strikes around Gaza City — which the military is gearing up to capture — including one in the Al-Sabra neighbourhood that killed eight people.

Attacks were also reported elsewhere across the territory, he said, with the “total tally currently rising to 42 dead”.

The army did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the figure.

“The situation is extremely dangerous… Each day, each minute, there are bombings, martyrs, death and blood — we can’t take it anymore,” Al-Sabra resident Ibrahim Al-Shurafa told AFP, explaining strikes and shelling were ongoing.

“We don’t know where to go. Death follows us everywhere,” he added.

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency or the Israeli military.

The October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Israel’s offensive has killed at least 62,686 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable.

AFP

Headline

Venezuela Frees Eight Opposition Leaders

Published

10 hours ago

August 24, 2025

Editor

Venezuelan authorities released eight opposition leaders from jail early Sunday, including a former congressman and two Italian citizens, and granted house arrest to five others, an opposition politician said.

Most of those released had been charged with corruption in opposition-run mayoral offices.

Also set free was Congressman, Amirico de Grazia, detained amid protests that erupted during President Nicolas Maduro’s reelection in 2024.

“Today, several families are once again embracing their loved ones. We know there are many left, and we have not forgotten them; we continue to fight for everyone,” two-time former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles said on X.

Opposition leaders Victor Jurado, Simon Vargas, Arelis Ojeda Escalante, Mayra Castro, Diana Berrio, Gorka Carnevalli, as well as Italian nationals Margarita Assenzo and de Grazia were released, Capriles said.

Nabil Maalouf, Valentin Gutierrez Pineda, Rafael Ramirez, Pedro Guanipa, and David Barroso were placed under house arrest.

The Italian government confirmed the release of de Grazia and Assenzo, who must appear in court to clarify the conditions of their release. It also vowed to continue working on securing the release of other detained Italians.

“We have always said, and we maintain it: we will talk to whomever we need to talk to so that there is not a single political prisoner in our Venezuela!” Capriles added.

AFP

Headline

Russia, Ukraine Exchange Prisoners Of War, Civilians

Published

10 hours ago

August 24, 2025

Editor

Russia and Ukraine each sent back more prisoners of war on Sunday in the latest in a series of exchanges that have seen hundreds of POWs released this year, the two sides said.

Large-scale prisoner exchanges were the only tangible result of three rounds of talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul between May and July.

They remain one of the few areas of cooperation between the two countries since Russia’s offensive began in 2022.

“On August 24, 146 Russian servicemen were returned from the territory controlled” by Kyiv, the Russian defence ministry said on Telegram.

“In exchange, 146 prisoners of war of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were transferred” to Ukraine, it added. Ukraine did not confirm any figures for the release.

Russia also said that “eight citizens of the Russian Federation—residents of the Kursk region, illegally detained” by Kyiv were also returned.

Ukrainian forces launched a surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in August last year, seizing hundreds of square kilometres (miles) of territory in a major setback for the Kremlin.

Russia deployed thousands of troops from its ally North Korea as part of a counterattack but did not fully reclaim the region until April.

Among the Ukrainians released on Sunday was journalist Dmytro Khyliuk, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Khyliuk was kidnapped in the Kyiv region in March 2022. He is finally home in Ukraine,” Zelensky said on social media.

Also freed was former Kherson mayor Volodymyr Mykolayenko, “who spent more than three years in captivity,” Zelensky’s aide Andriy Yermak wrote on X.

“In 2022, he was on the list for return, but Volodymyr voluntarily refused to be exchanged in favour of a seriously ill prisoner with whom he was sharing a cell in a Russian prison,” Yermak said.

AFP