Center East disaster stay: Gaza hostage-prisoner alternate set to go forward

Welcome to our stay protection of the Center East disaster. It’s simply after 8.30am in Gaza Metropolis and Tel Aviv – right here’s the newest information.

Israel ready on Saturday to obtain six extra hostages from Gaza in alternate for a whole bunch of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, after accusations over the return of a misidentified physique this week threatened to derail a fragile truce.

After Hamas handed over one other physique on Friday, Israel’s military radio reported early on Saturday that it had been recognized as Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas, including that she was seemingly killed in captivity along with her youngsters.

The six hostages set to be freed on Saturday are the final residing hostages from a bunch of 33 on account of be freed within the first stage of the ceasefire deal agreed final month, Reuters experiences.

4 of the hostages – Eliya Cohen, 27, Tal Shoham, 40, Omer Shem Tov, 22, and Omer Wenkert, 23 – had been seized by Hamas gunmen throughout their assault on Israel on 7 October 2023, Reuters experiences. One other two, Hisham Al-Sayed, 36, and Avera Mengistu, 39, have been held by Hamas since they entered Gaza individually underneath unexplained circumstances round a decade in the past.

In return, Israel is predicted to launch 602 Palestinian prisoners and detainees held in its jails within the newest exchanges underneath a ceasefire that has held up regardless of a collection of issues which have come near sinking it.

Late on Thursday, Israel accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire by handing over an unidentified physique as a substitute of the stays of hostage Shiri Bibas that had been on account of be returned together with the our bodies of her two small sons.

Hamas stated her stays appeared to have been blended up with different human stays recovered from the rubble after an Israeli airstrike it stated killed her and her two sons in November 2023. On Friday, the militant group handed over one other physique to the Crimson Cross. The Bibas household – which grew to become an indelible image of the 7 October assault – stated in a press release on Saturday that “this morning we obtained the information we feared probably the most. Our Shiri was murdered in captivity and has now returned house to her sons, husband, sister and all her household to relaxation”.

In different developments:

• The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, vowed revenge for what he described as a “merciless and malicious violation” of the ceasefire settlement after authorities decided {that a} physique launched by Hamas on Thursday was not Shiri Bibas. The physique was decided to be of an unidentified girl from Gaza.

• The Bibas household accused Netanyahu of failing to guard their family members throughout Hamas’s 2023 assault and of failing to deliver them house. “There is no such thing as a forgiveness for abandoning them on October 7, and no forgiveness for abandoning them in captivity,” stated Ofri Bibas, the sister-in-law of Shiri Bibas, in a press release.

• Netanyahu stated he has ordered the Israeli army to hold out an intensive operation in opposition to what he referred to as “centres of terrorism” within the West Financial institution. He additionally stated on social media that he had ordered Shin Guess and police to extend “preventative” measures in opposition to assaults on Israeli cities. It adopted a collection of explosions on three parked buses in Bat Yam, a metropolis exterior Tel Aviv, on Thursday night time. Authorities stated they had been a suspected terrorist assault. No accidents had been reported.

• Greater than half one million youngsters have been left with out schooling throughout Gaza and the West Financial institution, in accordance with the Worldwide Rescue Committee. The NGO warned that very important assist for youngsters within the area was being scuppered by growing violence.

• Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammed bin Salman held a gathering of Egyptian and Jordanian leaders described as “an off-the-cuff brotherly gathering” by the state-run Saudi Press Company. It got here forward of an Arab League summit prone to talk about the Gaza Strip after the US president, Donald Trump, proposed it “take over” the territory and completely resettle its Palestinian residents, a plan Arab nations have universally rejected.

• Sinn Féin chief Mary Lou McDonald will boycott St Patrick’s Day occasions within the US over Gaza. She and Northern Eire’s first minister, Michelle O’Neill, stated they’d not attend the celebrations after Trump’s name to exile Palestinians from the territory.