Hamas began releasing six Israeli hostages in Gaza as part of a prisoner exchange deal on Saturday.
The first two hostages, Tal Shoham, 40, and Avera Mengistu, 39, were handed over in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Shoham was taken during the October 7, 2023 attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, while Mengistu had been held since entering Gaza on his own in 2014.
The remaining four hostages—Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem-Tov, Omer Wenkert, and Hisham al-Sayed—are expected to be released later in Nuseirat and Gaza City.
Later in the day, Hamas handed over Israeli hostages Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov and Omer Wenkert to Red Cross representatives in central Gaza’s Nuseirat.
In exchange for these six Israeli hostages, Israel agreed to release 602 Palestinian prisoners from its jails. This prisoner swap is part of a broader ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that began on January 19, 2025. The deal includes the release of Palestinians serving life sentences or long terms.
The exchange follows a series of previous swaps under this ceasefire agreement. Before this event, over a thousand Palestinian prisoners had been released alongside several Israeli hostages since the truce commenced.
Despite tensions and challenges such as misidentified remains being returned earlier in the week (belonging to an unidentified Palestinian woman instead of deceased hostage Shiri Bibas), both sides have continued with their commitments under the agreement.
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