Israel releases some Palestinian prisoners after Hamas returns bodies of four hostages

Hamas has handed over the bodies of four hostages, and Israel has released some Palestinian prisoners, as the five-week-old ceasefire appeared to get back on track after a breach that had brought fears of a return to war in Gaza.

The bodies of the hostages were transferred to the Red Cross in southern Gaza and driven to the border point at Kerem Shalom at about midnight. Meanwhile, a convoy of buses carrying Palestinian prisoners arrived in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that 43 Palestinians being held in Ofer had been transferred to the Red Cross.

The group got off the bus to cheers from hundreds congregated outside, with some of the released men – clad in green jackets and keffiyehs – hoisted aloft by the crowd.

It was unclear on Wednesday how many Palestinians were being released overnight, and whether the exchange would include all 602 prisoners who had been due to be released by Israel on Saturday in exchange for six surviving Israeli hostages.

The six hostages had been transferred by Hamas according to the agreed schedule but, as the Palestinian prisoners sat in buses on Saturday night waiting to be transferred, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu at the last moment decided not to release them and returned them to their cells.

The government said it had stopped the exchange in protest at what it complained were the propaganda ceremonies Hamas staged to hand over hostages and the remains of the Israelis who had been killed while in captivity.

Since then, Hamas agreed to hand over the four hostages’ bodies away from the cameras, and in return Netanyahu’s government said it would proceed with the prisoner releases. However, the Israeli prison authorities did not specify whether the Palestinians would be freed in one go. One Israeli official was quoted in reports as saying that they would be released in batches.

The Palestinian detainees due to be released include 445 men and 24 women and minors arrested in Gaza, as well as 151 prisoners serving life sentences for deadly attacks on Israelis, a Hamas source told Reuters.

The bodies handed over to the Red Cross just after midnight on Thursday morning were named by Hamas as Shlomo Mantzur, Tsachi Idan, Ohad Yahalomi and Itzhak Elgarat. The IDF said the identities of the bodies had not yet been verified.

Relatives of Idan said that he was alive when he was taken hostage by Hamas on 7 October 2023, according to a statement released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the group representing families of the hostages.

“Since Tsachi was kidnapped, we received several signs of life, and in the previous deal last November, Tsachi was alive and expected to be released,” wrote the family. “We are still waiting for the much-needed certainty, which we can only receive after his arrival in Israel and after all necessary examinations are conducted by the authorised state authorities.”

The latest exchange came as the UN human rights chief accused Israel on Wednesday of showing an unprecedented disregard for human rights in its military actions in Gaza and said Hamas had violated international law.

“Nothing justifies the appalling manner in which Israel has conducted its military operations in Gaza which consistently breached international law”, said Volker Türk, while presenting a new report on the human rights situation in Gaza, the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem to the human rights council in Geneva.

“The level of devastation in Gaza is massive – from homes, to hospitals to schools”, Türk said, adding that “restrictions imposed by Israel … have created a humanitarian catastrophe.”