JERUSALEM (AP) — Hamas will release three Israelis, including two women and an 80-year-old man, as well as five Thai nationals during the next hostage release set for Thursday, Israel and Hamas said Wednesday as their tenuous ceasefire moves ahead.
The Israeli women are Arbel Yehoud, 29, and Agam Berger, 20, and the man is Gadi Moses. The identities of the Thai nationals were not immediately known.
A number of foreign workers were taken captive along with dozens of Israeli civilians and soldiers during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack that set off the war in Gaza. Twenty-three Thai hostages were released in the first ceasefire in November 2023. Israel says eight remain.
Thursday’s release would keep up the momentum of the ceasefire that began earlier this month and paused the 15-month war in Gaza.
Hamas is releasing hostages in phases in exchange for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. The prisoners range from individuals detained over minor offenses in recent months to senior militants serving life sentences after being convicted of deadly attacks on Israeli civilians. Some have been held without charge or trial.
Hostages and prisoners will be released twice this weekThe deal had been negotiated for months under the Biden administration but was finally sealed after incoming President Donald Trump threatened there would be “hell to pay” if the hostages weren’t returned.
Trump’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, was in Israel on Wednesday and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who heads to Washington next week as the first foreign leader to meet Trump in his second term.
The White House meeting on Feb. 4 comes a day after talks on the ceasefire’s more difficult second phase, aimed at ending the war, are meant to resume.
Thursday’s hostage release wasn’t originally scheduled but came as a result of a standoff between Israel and Hamas over the identities of the hostages released last weekend.
Israel had demanded that Yehoud, a civilian, be part of that group. When she wasn’t freed, it held up the return of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to war-battered northern Gaza.
International mediation efforts brought about the plan for an additional release on Thursday and cleared the way for Palestinians to stream north. Another release occurs Saturday, which Netanyahu’s office said would free male hostages. Dozens of Palestinian prisoners are set to be freed both Thursday and Saturday.
Among the prisoners slated for release Thursday is Zakaria Zubeidi, a prominent former militant leader and theater director whose dramatic jailbreak in 2021 thrilled Palestinians and stunned the Israeli security establishment.
Egypt rejects Trump’s suggestion that it take in PalestiniansThe pause in fighting has exposed the vastness of the destruction to Gaza’s urban landscape, prompting Trump’s suggestion over the weekend that neighboring Jordan and Egypt take in displaced Palestinians so that “we just clean out that whole thing,” calling the territory “a demolition site.”
Egypt and Jordan, important U.S. allies, have rejected the suggestion, defying a U.S. president who has shown little patience for dissent from international partners. The Palestinians also rejected it amid fears it would undermine the notion of Palestinian statehood.
In his first public comments on the issue, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi on Wednesday called the idea “an injustice” and said the transfer of Palestinians “can’t ever be tolerated or allowed.” He said the solution is the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Trump has said he would urge the leaders of both countries, which are major recipients of U.S. aid, to accept the idea, saying the resettlement could be temporary or long term.
It is not clear if Trump could force Egypt or Jordan to agree, but he has threatened hefty tariffs against other American allies to get his way. Egypt and Jordan receive billions of dollars in American aid each year. Military assistance to Egypt and Israel was exempted from a U.S. funding freeze to global aid programs.
Palestinians fear they may never return if they leaveThe war has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants in their count. The fighting has obliterated vast areas of Gaza, displacing some 90% of its 2.3 million population, often multiple times.
During its attack, Hamas took 250 people hostage and killed roughly 1,200.
The theme of displacement has been recurrent in Palestinian history, and the idea of staying on one’s land is integral to the Palestinian identity. Palestinians fear that if they leave, they may never be allowed to return.
Those fears have been compounded by far-right members of Israel’s government who support rebuilding Jewish settlements in Gaza, from which Israel withdrew troops and settlers from in 2005. Netanyahu says that idea is unrealistic.
Egypt and Jordan have each made peace with Israel but support the creation of a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem. They fear that the permanent displacement of Gaza’s population could make that impossible.
___Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Isabel DeBre contributed reporting from Ramallah, West Bank.
___Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
