Hamas and Israel agree on the repatriation of six captives and corpses held in Gaza.

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Hamas and Israel reached an agreement on Tuesday to free six living hostages from Gaza in exchange for the return of four prisoners’ bodies, including the remains of two young boys who were held up as national icons back home, according to militants.

The family of captives Shiri Bibas and her sons Ariel and Kfir, the last three Israeli children held in Gaza, claimed they were “in turmoil” at the news, adding that they had yet to get “official confirmation” of their loved ones’ deaths.

Thirty-three Israeli captives were scheduled to be released as part of the first phase of the shaky Gaza truce, which went into force last month, with 19 already released in return for more than 1,100 Palestinian inmates. Israel claims that eight of the remaining 14 have died.

In a televised broadcast, Hamas’ senior negotiator Khalil al-Hayya stated that the group has “decided to release on Saturday, February 22, the remaining living (Israeli) prisoners whose release was agreed upon in the first phase, numbering six.”

Hayya also stated that the gang had chosen to deliver over four bodies on Thursday, including those of the Bibas family.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office later announced that, amid indirect discussions in Cairo, “agreements were reached” for the six surviving captives to be turned up on Saturday, as well as four bodies on Thursday and four more next week.

The Bibas family claimed in a statement that it had been “in turmoil following (the) Hamas spokesperson’s announcement about the planned return of our Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir this Thursday”.

The trio were abducted, along with the boys’ father Yarden Bibas, during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war, with Ariel and Kfir in particular coming to symbolise the hostages’ plight for many Israelis. Yarden was released alive during a previous hostage-prisoner exchange.

Hamas has previously said that Shiri and the children were killed in an Israeli air strike in November 2023, but Israel has not confirmed their deaths.