Hamas will release six Israeli captives and hand over the bodies of four others this week as part of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, the group’s leader in the enclave said.
Khalil al-Hayya, head of the Palestinian group in Gaza said the handover of the bodies will take place in Gaza on Thursday and that six living Israeli captives will be released on Saturday.
“Hamas has proven, along with the resistance, its seriousness in implementing the agreement with full responsibility,” he said on Tuesday. “We stress the need to oblige the occupation to implement all provisions of the agreement without procrastination.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that talks in Egypt resulted in an agreement on the release of six living Israeli captives on Saturday as part of the first phase of the ceasefire deal with Hamas.
Israel will also receive the bodies of four dead captives on Thursday, before another four bodies later next week, the statement said.
The first phase of the Gaza truce, which was brokered by the United States, Qatar and Egypt, is due to expire on March 1. Negotiations on the next stages, including a permanent end to the war, have not yet begun.
Reporting from Amman, Jordan, Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said the releases could be a major development regarding negotiations on phase two of the ceasefire.
“Hamas said they are doing this because they want the second phase to take place. The Israelis have been asking for this for about a week now, saying they want the bodies of some captives to be released sooner than the end of phase one,” she said.
Salhut noted that the bodies of members of the Bibas family were expected to be handed over on Thursday. In November 2023, Hamas announced the family was killed in an Israeli air strike.
Husband and father Yarden Bibas was released last month as part of phase one of the ceasefire deal.
“The Israeli military had said they had great concerns over the fate of the mother and her two children, but did not confirm whether they were killed. Hamas now confirms they will be releasing the bodies,” Salhut added.
Former director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry Alon Liel, pointed out that Hamas returning bodies of the Israeli captives to the Red Cross, “could have a devastating effect on the Israeli public.”
He said it would be a day of mourning in Israel which would shock the people.
“But it is still better than getting nothing from Hamas. We would love to have all the living hostages and the bodies back in Israel as soon as possible,” Liel said.
Israel seeks ‘maximum flexibility’ in talks
Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire deal in Gaza on January 19, after more than 460 days of a war that has devastated the Palestinian territory.
However, Israel has violated the ceasefire in Gaza 266 times, killing at least 132 people, Palestinian security sources told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.
Since the ceasefire took effect, Israeli leaders have also discussed the possibility of an imminent return to fighting in Gaza, with far-right ministers in Netanyahu’s cabinet pushing for a military occupation of the enclave, while US President Donald Trump has called for the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.
Mohamad Elmasry, a professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera, said Israel is looking for “maximum flexibility” in advance of potential talks over the second phase of the truce deal with Hamas.
“On the one hand, there are whispers that at least some in the Israeli government want to move to phase two of the Gaza ceasefire and [US President] Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy said he is confident there will be a phase two. All of that seems to be positive,” Elmasry said.
“On the other hand, Israel and the US are in a way talking from both sides of their mouth because they’re still talking about the complete eradication of Hamas and Trump’s forced expulsion and ethnic cleansing plan for Gaza,” Elmasry added.
On Tuesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said that Israel will begin negotiations “this week” on the second phase of the ceasefire deal in Gaza.
“We had yesterday night a security cabinet meeting. We decided to open negotiations on the second phase. It will happen this week,” Saar said of the talks, which were originally supposed to start on February 3.
He added that Israel demands “a total demilitarisation of Gaza and no presence of the Palestinian Authority”.