Hamas handed over list showing 25 Israeli hostages living out of 33

GAZA: The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has handed over to mediators a list showing that 25 Israeli hostages are still alive, out of 33 scheduled for release, an official of the group told Reuters on Monday.

He said Israel had received the list from the mediators of the Gaza ceasefire agreement.

Earlier, Hamas released four female Israeli soldiers held in Gaza as part of the ceasefire agreement, handing them over to Red Cross officials in Palestine Square in Gaza City.

Ahead of the release, scores of masked Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters gathered at the square where a large crowd of Palestinians also congregated.

In addition to hundreds of Hamas members, other Palestinian factions, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, were also present at the site.

The four Israeli soldiers, Karina Ariev, 20; Daniella Gilboa, 20; Naama Levy, 20; and Liri Albag, 19, were captured in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack that ignited the war.

They were taken from Nahal Oz base near the border with Gaza when Hamas overran it, killing more than 60 soldiers there.

The female abductees had all served in a unit of lookouts charged with monitoring threats along the border. A fifth female soldier in their unit, Agam Berger, 20, was abducted with them but not included in the list.

PHASED AGREEMENT

The ceasefire agreement, worked out after months of on-off negotiations brokered by Qatar and Egypt and backed by the United States, halted the fighting for the first time since a truce that lasted just a week in November 2023.

In the first phase, Hamas has agreed to release 33 hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

In a subsequent phase, the two sides would negotiate the exchange of the remaining hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, which lies largely in ruins after 15 months of fighting and Israeli bombardment.