By Maayan Lubell, Nidal al-Mughrabi and Dawoud Abu Alkas
JERUSALEM/CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) -The Palestinian militant movement Hamas is expected to release four female Israeli soldiers on Saturday in exchange for a group of Palestinian prisoners under a ceasefire agreement aimed at ending the 15-month-old war in Gaza.
Dozens of masked and armed Hamas and fellow Islamic Jihad militants gathered at a square in Gaza City, where a podium was set up, as a crowd of Palestinians gathered round. A banner hanging off the stage read in Hebrew “Zionism will not prevail.”
A team from the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza was on the way to collect the Israeli hostages from Hamas, an official involved in the operation told Reuters.
The four soldiers – Karina Ariev, Daniela Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag – were all stationed at an observation post on the edge of Gaza and abducted by Hamas fighters who overran their base during the attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
One of the soldiers’ was being held by Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian source said.
The Hamas prisoners media office said it expected 200 prisoners to be freed on Saturday as part of the exchange, including 120 serving life sentences and 80 prisoners with other lengthy sentences.
Their identities have not yet been published but they are likely to include members of militant groups convicted for deadly attacks that killed dozens of people.
A Palestinian official close to the talks told Reuters that some of the freed prisoners will be released into Egypt. Some of those will stay in Egypt while others may go on to Algeria, Qatar or Turkey.
Saturday’s exchange would be the second since the ceasefire began on Sunday and Hamas handed over three Israeli civilians in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners.
Hamas identified on Friday the four hostages to be released in the second swap. But Israel has not commented officially and may not do so until it actually receives them.
The Red Cross will receive them from Hamas in Gaza and hand them over to Israeli forces who will transport them into Israel, where they will be reunited with family, undergo initial medical treatment and taken to hospital. Another female soldier abducted with them is expected to be released in the coming weeks.
Video of the four’s abduction aired in May showed the five conscripts, pyjama-clad and stunned and some bloodied, being bound and bundled into a jeep. The footage was recovered from bodycams worn by gunmen who attacked the Nahal Oz base in southern Israel where the women served as surveillance spotters.
PHASED CEASEFIRE
The ceasefire agreement, worked out after months of on-off negotiations brokered by Qatar and Egypt and backed by the United States, has halted the fighting for the first time since a truce that lasted just a week in November 2023.
In the first six-week phase of the deal, Hamas has agreed to release 33 hostages, including children, women, older men and the sick and injured, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, while Israeli troops pull back from some of their positions in the Gaza Strip.
In a subsequent phase, the two sides would negotiate the exchange of the remaining hostages, including men of military age, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, which lies largely in ruins after 15 months of fighting and Israeli bombardment.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, when militants killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, more than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to health authorities there.
After the release on Sunday of hostages Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher and the recovery of the body of an Israeli soldier missing for a decade, Israel says 94 Israelis and foreigners remain held in Gaza. Around a third have been declared dead in absentia by Israeli authorities.
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