Hamas: Deal reached for ‘simultaneous’ release of 4 slain hostages, Palestinian prisoners

Hamas and Israel reached an agreement for the release of four Israeli hostages’ bodies and 602 Palestinian security prisoners, the terror group and an Israeli official said late Tuesday, which would an end to an impasse that risked collapsing the multiphase ceasefire agreement before its first stage was even completed.

“An agreement was reached to resolve the issue of the delayed release of Palestinian prisoners who were supposed to be freed in the last batch,” Hamas said in a statement. “They will be released simultaneously with the bodies of the Israeli prisoners agreed upon for transfer during the first phase, in addition to an equivalent number of Palestinian women and children.”

The Israeli official who confirmed the deal said the release would be carried out through Egypt on Wednesday, though other reports said it would not take place until some time on Thursday.

Israel was supposed to release the Palestinian prisoners on Saturday but has been refusing to do so, citing Hamas violations of the deal during the return of the three Bibas family members’ remains as well as the propaganda ceremonies it has been putting on throughout the hostage releases so far in phase one.

Earlier Tuesday, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel that Hamas has agreed not to hold such ceremonies during the release of the four slain hostages, but similar assurances were given ahead of the release of the Bibas family and body of Oded Lifshitz that were not upheld, leading Jerusalem to refuse to release the Palestinian prisoners before the hostages are freed.

According to Hamas, the agreement was reached during meetings that its delegation led by Khalil al-Hayya held in Cairo with Egyptian officials.

“The Hamas leadership delegation reaffirmed its clear position on the need for full and precise adherence to all its terms and stages,” the terrorist organization’s statement added.

Despite the announcement of the deal, the future of the ceasefire and hostage release agreement remained uncertain.

The three-stage deal, reached last month, halted some 15 months of fighting triggered by the group’s October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, when Hamas-led terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.

The deal requires Hamas to release all its hostages, Israel to release thousands of Palestinian security prisoners — including hundreds serving life sentences — and a halt to fighting in the Strip, followed by negotiations for a “sustainable calm” and IDF withdrawal from the enclave.

Once the final release of hostages envisioned in the first phase happens, said an Israeli official, Hamas has three choices. It can agree to Israel’s terms — that it disarm, that its leaders go into exile, and that it give up any civil control over Gaza — and then Israel will move to the second phase of the deal, which would see all hostages released and the war come to an end.

Hamas can also continue releasing hostages and extend the ceasefire.

Or, the official told The Times of Israel, Hamas can choose the end of the ceasefire, which would mean a return to all-out war.

“It would be different” from the past fighting during the previous Biden administration in Washington, said the official. “A new defense minister, a new chief of staff, all the weapons we need, and full legitimacy, one hundred percent, from the Trump administration.”

“The gates of hell will be opened, as they say,” the official said using a threat that both Israel and Hamas often level at each other.

The first phase of the deal, which includes the ongoing ceasefire, ends on Saturday.

After the release of the bodies on Thursday, Israel will give Hamas some time to decide what it wants to do, the official said. But if there isn’t another release of hostages by next Saturday, March 8 — indicating continuation of the first phase — Israel will consider the ceasefire over, the official said.

Israel expects US special envoy Steve Witkoff to come to Israel in the coming days, after he postponed a trip scheduled to begin Wednesday. “He is waiting for things to be a bit more ripe,” the official asserted.

Witkoff, speaking at an event in Washington held by the American Jewish Committee, said Wednesday that Israeli negotiators would travel to Qatar or Egypt this week for talks on the deal moving forward.

“We’re making a lot of progress. Israel is sending a team right now as we speak,” Witkoff said.

Witkoff said the focus of the new talks will be to “put phase two on track and have some additional hostage release — and we think that’s a real possibility.”

Witkoff said that “maybe” he will join the negotiations on Sunday “if it goes well.” He earlier spoke of traveling to the region this week, a trip that the Axios news site reported that he delayed to focus on US-led efforts to find a negotiated end to the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Witkoff had said on Sunday morning news shows that he could be coming to the region Wednesday to talk about extending the first phase of the deal between Israel and Hamas, and to discuss a second phase.

Witkoff met with Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a top confidante of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Washington in recent days to discuss the talks.

Freed hostages fight for release of remaining captives

Meanwhile, four recently released hostages penned a letter Netanyahu in which they appealed for the government to “bring fathers back to their children.”

In the letter, Or Levy, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Ofer Calderon, and Tal Shoham explained that “we were not the only ones who went through hardships and upheavals during this period. Our families and children suffered [and are still suffering] from ongoing trauma, and at the time, endless uncertainty and longing.”

“The harm to them in our absence was significant,” the four said, adding that their children now require “long-term rehabilitation and constant support” to heal from what they endured.

They noted that for some families — including Shoham’s — the trauma is compounded by the fact that their children were also taken hostage and were released during the November 2023 truce, while their fathers were left behind. Others, they said, witnessed the “horrific events” of the October 7, 2023 attacks and are now “forced to endure further harm in the form of the delay in returning their hostage fathers to Israel.”

“The State of Israel has a duty to put the welfare of children and the welfare of families first, and to do everything in its power so that the hostage fathers, some of whom are dead…are returned as soon as possible,” continued the letter.

They said that the children of the hostages deserve an absolute answer “about the basic question: ‘Where is dad?'”

“This is the least that can be done for us,” they wrote. “This is the essence of solidarity, of concern for others, and of thinking about the next generation.”

Also Wednesday, Noa Argamani, who was rescued from Hamas captivity in June 2024, addressed the UN Security Council’s monthly session on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and asked its members to push for the release of the remaining hostages.

“I was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on October 7 from the Nova music festival with my partner, Avinatan Or,” she began, taking out a photo of her partner, who is still captive in Gaza. “We were taken by force into Gaza, we were held in total fear, living in a nightmare.”

“After 8 months in captivity, I was rescued by the Israeli soldiers. Being here today is a miracle.,” she said. “But I’m here today to tell you we have no time. As I speak, there are still 63 hostages living in a nightmare.

“Our lives cannot go [on] without them,” she told the council. “The deal must go on in full… my partner and many other hostages are only supposed to be released in the second stage of the deal.”

Pleading for the international community’s assistance, Argamani said she is talking about “innocent people taken from their beds, from a dance party, from their simple lives, into a pure hell.”

“You don’t need me to tell you about 9-month-old Kfir, and 4-year-old Ariel and their mother Shiri. A mother and her babies were brutally murdered in captivity. The crime is unthinkable. We cannot imagine it. But it happened,” she said.

“I know what it [feels like] to be left behind, or watch other hostages being released to their families,” said Argamani, who was one of the few women not released during the weeklong truce in November 2023.

“While I was in Gaza, I was held with two little girls — Hila Rotem and Emily Hand. At that time, Emily was 8 years old and Hila was 12,” she recounted. “I had to be brave, not only for myself but also for the girls.”

“Hila and Emily were both released in the first hostage deal after 50 days. I watched them, and two other women who had been with me in captivity go home to their families as I stayed behind…I can’t even begin to explain the feeling of being the one who was left behind.”

“But I can tell you this is exactly how the hostages are feeling today. Abandoned by the world,” Argamani told the council.

She recounted how, later in her captivity she was held with Yossi Sharabi and Itay Svirsky, both of whom were killed in Gaza —  Sharabi in an IDF strike, and Svirsky by their captors.

“We were in a warzone, 24/7. It was terrifying, every day, every second,” she said, recalling how she heard Sharabi scream, and then fall silent after the IDF strike rained rubble down on them.

“From that moment, I was by myself,” said Noa.

She appealed for the council to “work for the light and against the darkness,” and warned that, “Without immediate action, many more innocent people will be killed.”

“What kept me alive in captivity, and until this very moment, was something my mother used to tell me: ‘Always be kind.’

“So in this forum, let me end with that,” Noa said. “Be kind to each other, and please, bring all of them home now.”

Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 63 hostages, including 62 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 36 confirmed dead by the IDF.

Hamas has so far released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers, and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of four slain Israeli captives — Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, and Oded Lifshitz — during a ceasefire that began in January.

The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war.

Eight hostages have been rescued from captivity by troops alive, and the bodies of 41 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors, and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014. The body of another soldier killed in 2014, Lt. Hadar Goldin, is still being held by Hamas, and is counted among the 63 hostages.

Times of Israel and agencies staff contributed to this report.