Ariel Schalit\/AP<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n Hamas has now released a total of 16 Israeli hostages as part of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, of a total of 33 promised at staggered intervals during this stage. Eight of those 33 are dead, according to the Israeli government. <\/p>\n
Following the release of the three hostages on Saturday, Hamas and its allies still hold a total of 73 people taken from Israel on October 7, 2023, of 251 initially taken. Three additional hostages, held captive since 2014, are still in Gaza. <\/p>\n
Hamas has said it expects Israel on Saturday to release 183 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the three Israelis. Israel is yet to confirm the numbers and names of the prisoners expected to be released. <\/p>\n
Eighteen of the Palestinian prisoners expected to be released Saturday are serving life sentences, while 54 have lesser sentences and 111 were detained in Gaza after October 7, Hamas said in a statement. The charges against the 111 were not clear. <\/p>\n
As well as taking hostages, Palestinian militants killed more than 1,200 people during the October 7 attack. Israeli bombardment of Gaza since then has killed more than 40,000 people, reduced much of the enclave to rubble, and led to a humanitarian catastrophe for surviving residents. The war has spilled over into the wider region, putting Israel in conflict with key Hamas backer Iran, as well as Tehran proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. <\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s release follows the freeing of three Israeli hostages \u2013 Keith Siegel, Yarden Bibas and Ofer Kalderon \u2013 on February 1. The three men were handed over by Hamas in two orderly handover ceremonies that stood in stark contrast to scenes earlier that week. <\/p>\n
On January 30, Israeli and Thai hostages were released in chaotic fashion, with a crowd of thousands jostling and cheering as they were handed over to the Red Cross in the central Gazan city of Khan Younis. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described that handover as \u201cshocking\u201d and demanded guarantees from those who mediated the ceasefire deal \u2013 Qatar, Egypt and the United States \u2013 that the incident would not be repeated. <\/p>\n
Uncertainty looms over the future of the ceasefire and hostage agreement between Israel and Hamas. Negotiations on extending the Gaza ceasefire \u2013\u202fwhich expires on March 1 \u2013\u202fare in doubt. <\/p>\n
Netanyahu has been deeply wary of phase two of that deal, which would see the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and the return of the remaining hostages there. His finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has pledged to quit the government if the ceasefire continues. <\/p>\n
Fueling more uncertainty, in remarkable comments on Tuesday evening, US President Donald Trump proposed that the US \u201ctake over\u201d Gaza, relocate its residents to neighboring countries, and redevelop the war-torn enclave. His comments were welcomed by Israeli far-right ministers and condemned by Hamas. <\/p>\n
A Hamas official slammed Trump\u2019s proposal as a \u201crecipe for creating chaos and tension in the region.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cOur people in the Gaza Strip will not allow these plans to pass, and what is required is to end the occupation and aggression against our people, not expel them from their land,\u201d Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n
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Three male Israeli hostages are in the custody of the Israeli military in the fifth round of exchanges between Israel and Hamas, as uncertainty looms over the next stage of the Gaza ceasefire agreement as well as the enclave\u2019s long-term future. Ohad Ben Ami, Eli Sharabi, and Or Levy \u2013 all taken hostage during the <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12922,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12921","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}