Hamas has said four more female Israeli hostages will be freed this weekend in return for Palestinian prisoners, as the new US president, Donald Trump, said he was not confident that the ceasefire deal that he personally insisted on would hold.
The next group of hostages due to be released is expected to include captured female Israeli soldiers, who will be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners serving more lengthy sentences who are being held in Israeli jails, some of whom will be deported to third countries.
With the release of three women on Sunday, seven Israeli women remain on the list of the initial group of 33 hostages designated for release in the first phase of the three-part ceasefire agreement, which includes women, children, elderly and sick people.
Five of those remaining women are soldiers who were captured on 7 October 2023 during Hamas’s surprise attack on southern Israeli communities close to the Gaza border.
Although Hamas has not notified mediators in Qatar of the names of hostages to be released, the speculation in the Israeli media is that it will include one civilian and three IDF spotters captured in Nahal Oz.
The arrangements for the release are expected to be largely similar to last week with Hamas delivering hostages to the Red Cross to be conveyed to Israeli forces still in Gaza and then Palestinian prisoners being released from jail hours later.
The Hamas statement came as David Barnea, head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence organisation; and Ronen Bar, the head of the domestic security agency, the Shin Bet; visited Cairo on Monday, to meet Egyptian intelligence officials to discuss how Palestinian prisoners would be deported as part of the deal.
Israel holds more than 10,300 Palestinian prisoners, while an estimated 96 Israeli prisoners are still being held in Gaza after Sunday’s release of three women, including joint Israeli-British citizen Emily Damari in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners, most of whom were women and children.
In a statement released by Nader Fakhouri of Hamas’s martyrs, injured, and prisoners office, he confirmed “the second part of the first phase of the Palestinian resistance factions’ agreement with the Israeli occupation will begin on Saturday 25 January” although the handover itself is not expected until Sunday.
Under the ceasefire deal any female Israeli soldier released would mean the release of 30 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences and 20 with high-term sentences.
Trump’s comment that he was not confident the deal would hold came during the signing of a tranche of executive orders after his inauguration, and added further fuel to concerns over the fragility of the complex deal that requires further negotiations on ever-more difficult issues as the ceasefire progresses.
Trump’s remarks are doubly worrying as he is in effect one of the guarantors of the ceasefire, having personally intervened in the closing days of Joe Biden’s presidency to insist to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that a ceasefire must happen.
“It’s not our war, it’s their war,” Trump said. “But I’m not confident. But I think they’re very weakened on the other side.”
Trump comments came as he revoked a key Biden-era decision that had been seen as a source of pressure on Israel, the sanctioning of Israelis seen as being involved in violent settler activity.
Trump made his comments as an Israeli military spokesperson said Palestinians in Gaza would be formally permitted to return to the north of the coastal territory in about a week if Hamas upheld all the terms of the deal, although many have already visited.
Emergency services in the Gaza Strip report that the remains of 50 bodies were found near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis and transferred to Nasser hospital in the city.
The statement added that dozens of bodies were also located on Monday in Rafah in the southern part of the territory.
According to the Hamas-run Gaza information office, at least 11,000 people are still missing.
The latest developments came as the first details of conditions in which the three women released on Sunday were kept.
According to a report on Israel N12 television channel Doron Steinbrecher, Romi Gonen, and Emily Damari were held together at first but were later separated, both in tunnels underground and at locations above ground, moving dozens of times, with at least one of the women saying she believed she would die in Gaza in her testimony.
They also appear to have had access to television at times saying they were aware of their families campaign for their release.
“We saw your fight; we heard our families battling for us,” they said.
