JPOST
Israel expects Hamas to free three hostages Saturday, asks for more living captives
Amichai Stein
February 13, 2025

Israeli officials expect Hamas to deliver on Friday a list of three hostages to be released on Saturday, an Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. Qatari Prime Minister Al-Thani is expected to send the list to Mossad chief David Barnea. The release that is expected during the weekend follows Hamas’ threat earlier this week to withhold the hostages unless Israel fulfills its humanitarian obligations. Hamas claims that Israel has not allowed all the agreed-upon humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip as stipulated in the agreement. On Thursday, Hamas stated that Israel had agreed to allow pre-fabricated housing and heavy equipment for rubble removal into Gaza. However, Prime Minister’s spokesperson Omer Dostri dismissed these reports as “fake news” in a post on X. READ MORE

JNS Fiamma Nirenstein: From Auschwitz to Gaza: The unfolding horror and its implications The event was a grotesque spectacle. The hostages, under the gaze of masked Hamas militants and Al Jazeera’s cameras, were made to listen to a speech before being forced to speak themselves. Eli Sharabi learned from his captors that his older brother, Yossi, also a hostage, had been murdered in captivity. Upon his return to Israel, he learned that his wife and two daughters were murdered in their home in Be’eri on Oct. 7, 2023. Ohad Ben Ami, whose mother lamented that he now looked like an 80-year-old man, was reunited with his wife, Raz, who had been kidnapped alongside him and was released in November 2023. Or Levy, who had been covered in his wife’s blood at the Nova music festival, where she was murdered—returned to his 3-year-old son, the only surviving member of his immediate family.