Islamic Jihad says deal reached to release Arbel Yehoud; PM’s office says talks ongoing
Civilian hostage will be freed ahead of Saturday’s scheduled release, says terror group official; PMO says displaced northern Gazans won’t be allowed to return until Yehuod is released

A Palestinian Islamic Jihad official said Sunday that mediators have reached an agreement regarding the release of civilian hostage Arbel Yehoud, though Israel says no agreement has been reached amid an impasse that saw Israel block the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza.
Islamic Jihad’s Mohamed al-Hajj Mousa said the group told mediators she would be released before Saturday. Sky News Arabia also cited an Islamic Jihad source as saying Yehoud would be returned Friday in exchange for 30 Palestinian prisoners, some of whom are serving life sentences, and the return northward of displaced Gazans.
Meanwhile, the Kan public broadcaster reported said Yehoud would be released even sooner than Friday after Islamic Jihad agreed to classify her as a civilian rather than a soldier.
A source in PIJ had told Al Jazeera that the terror group considered her a soldier and would be “released according to the deal’s terms,” which dictate that Israel release more Palestinian prisoners in return for soldiers than in return for civilians. According to Kan, PIJ dropped the claim following intense negotiations with mediators over the past day.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “talks are ongoing” to secure Yehoud’s release and reiterated that Israel “will not allow the passage of Gazans to the northern part of the Gaza” until the release is arranged.
Israel blocked the return north of displaced Palestinians after Hamas released four female soldiers on Saturday. Under the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal, the terror group had been required to prioritize the release of civilian women.

Hamas said it had given guarantees that Arbel was safe and would be released soon, but two senior Israeli officials cited by Haaretz on Sunday said Jerusalem has received no such assurance.
Hamas apparently violated the agreement again overnight with its failure to inform Israel by midnight who was alive among the 26 hostages still to be released in the deal’s 42-day first phase.
According to the ceasefire deal, Israel was to open the Netzarim Corridor on Saturday or day seven of the agreement. Hamas on Sunday accused Israel of violating the agreement and “stalling under the pretext of captive Arbel Yehoud.”
On Sunday, tens of thousands of displaced Gazans massed on the road to the north but were not allowed to pass through. The IDF said it had fired warning shots at those who approached forces and “posed a threat.”
In addition, the military said that in southern Gaza, troops eliminated a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s rocket unit, after he “posed a threat.”

Yehoud, 28, and her boyfriend Ariel Cunio, 26, were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.
Cunio’s older brother David is also in Hamas captivity. Neither is slated for release during the deal’s first phase, in which Hamas has committed to free 33 women, children, men over 50, and those considered especially unhealthy, in return for some 1,904 Palestinian prisoners.
With the release Saturday of female soldiers Naama Levy, Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa and Liri Albag, three Israeli women remain in captivity in Gaza: soldier Agam Berger and civilians Yehoud and Shiri Silberman Bibas.
The civilian women were to be released alongside the two children still in captivity: Silberman Bibas’s sons Ariel, 5, and Kfir, 2. The Bibas’s relatives said Saturday that their “world came crashing down” when Hamas announced it would not be releasing Shiri, Ariel and Kfir over the weekend.
Yarden Bibas, Silberman Bibas’s husband and father of the boys, is included in the list of unhealthy men to be released toward the end of the agreement’s first phase. The IDF said of the Bibas family Saturday that Israel has “grave concerns for their fate.”
Eighty-seven of the abducted by Hamas in the October 7 onslaught remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas has so far released seven hostages during a ceasefire that began this month. The terror group released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that.
Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 40 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors.
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 this month.
Agencies contributed to this report.