Hamas names 4 female hostages to be freed Sat.; Israel okays list though it violates terms
After top-level security consult, Israel decides breach not grave enough to end ceasefire agreement, which calls for terror group to free female civilians before women soldiers
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
Hamas on Friday afternoon published the names of four female Israeli hostages who it said it would release on Saturday after 477 days in captivity.
Although the list did not conform with the terms of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, Israel hours later decided to proceed with the deal.
The four are IDF surveillance soldiers Liri Albag, 19, Daniella Gilboa, 20, Karina Ariev, 20, and Naama Levy, 20, who were abducted to Gaza during Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023. Their families were later notified they are expected to be released on Saturday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz held consultations with security chiefs Friday evening on how to respond to the violation, and agreed to the release of the four hostages named by Hamas after deciding the violation was not grave enough to collapse the deal.
A security source was cited in reports as saying that “Israel is preparing to receive the female hostages tomorrow,” and that the list of Palestinian prisoners set for release would be handed over to Hamas later Friday.
The hostages are expected to be released at around 4 p.m. Saturday, but Arab and Hebrew media reports said the process may begin earlier, perhaps even in the morning.
According to Channel 12 news, Israel informed the deal’s mediators of the violation: Under the agreement, female civilians are to be released first, then female soldiers, followed by the elderly and then those who are deemed extremely ill.
Including Albag, Gilboa, Ariev and Levy, there are seven remaining female hostages from the original list of 33 to be released in the first phase of the ceasefire deal. The other three are fellow soldier Agam Berger, 21, and civilians Arbel Yehoud, 29, and Shiri Silberman Bibas, 33.
Israel on Thursday reportedly conveyed to Hamas that it expects Yehoud to be among the four released this weekend. Yehoud is thought to be held by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group and not Hamas, apparently leading to concern in Jerusalem that Hamas would attempt to put off her release. Yehoud was supposed to have been freed on the final day of the November 2023 hostage-truce, but the truce collapsed before the final group of hostages were freed.
Silberman Bibas, the other female civilian, was kidnapped during the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led terror onslaught alongside her two young sons Ariel and Kfir, now aged 5 and 2, who are also on the list of 33 hostages to be released in the hostage agreement’s first stage. Her husband Yarden Bibas, who was captured separately, is likewise on the list.
On Saturday, Hamas is expected to provide Israel with details on the status of the 30 remaining hostages on the list, providing long-sought specifics on which hostages were alive. There is concern in Jerusalem, however, that Hamas might merely provide an overall number of how many of the 30 are alive.
Following the scheduled release of the second group of hostages, Israel is set to free another batch of Palestinian security prisoners. The agreement stipulates that for each of the female soldiers, Israel will release 50 Palestinian prisoners, 30 of them convicted terrorists who are serving life sentences. On Monday, Israel released 30 prisoners for each of the three civilian female hostages — Romi Gonen, Emily Damari, and Doron Steinbrecher — Hamas set free the previous afternoon.
Israel is also set to allow displaced Palestinians on foot to return to northern Gaza from Saturday via the Netzarim Corridor.
Ninety-one of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF. Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the body of an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014. The body of another IDF soldier, also killed in 2014, was recovered from Gaza in January.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
