JERUSALEM – Hamas will release four female soldiers it killed with Israel on Saturday as part of a ceasefire and hostage release deal, the militant group said.
A spokesman for Hamas’ military wing, Al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeidah, said in a Telegram post that Karina Arif, Daniel Gilboa, Nama Levy and Larry al-Bagh would be transferred to Israeli custody in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
A senior Hamas official, Basim Naim, told NBC News in a separate statement that all four hostages are alive.
He added that 200 prisoners will be released, of which 120 have been sentenced to life imprisonment and 80 have been sentenced to long terms. He did not provide further details about the released prisoners.
If successful, the release would be the second exchange as part of a complex cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which took effect last Sunday and marked a pause in 15 months of bitter fighting and Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. gave
As part of the truce, which saw the first releases from both sides last Sunday, Hamas will release one civilian hostage for every 30 Palestinians held in Israeli custody and one female Israeli soldier for every 50 prisoners on the other side. will release
In a sign of the fluidity and fragility of the talks, Hamas said on Monday it would release the hostages in Gaza on Saturday, after one of its officials had initially suggested they be released a day later than expected. will be given.
Last Sunday’s release of the first three Israeli hostages and 90 Palestinian prisoners, all women and children, faced a last-minute delay after the Israeli government said it had not been provided with the names of the hostages to be released.
The first three Israeli hostages to be released were Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and dual British citizen Emily Damari. Hamas has said it plans to release 33 hostages over the course of six weeks as Israeli forces gradually withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
The fighting in Gaza began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a terrorist attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and took nearly 250 hostages. It saw Israel launch an air and ground attack on Gaza, killing more than 47,000 people, mostly civilians.
Four Hamas hostages were taken hostage for release on Saturday while they were patrolling the Nihal Oz military base on the Gaza border. There, they were tasked with observing suspicious military movements in the enclave. Agam Berger, the fifth female soldier held hostage, will remain in Gaza.
Several of his colleagues were killed on October 7, 2023, but video footage of the surviving women captured during their capture has been widely circulated on social media and broadcast media.
Three months before the Hamas terror attack, 20-year-old Karina Arief warned her family about the coming war, her sister Sasha told the Christian Broadcasting Company days after her sister was taken.
“They knew something, the girls who were the eyes of the country,” Sasha said, adding that her sister called her the morning of the Hamas attack. She said she could hear shooting and screaming in the background and received a text from her sister saying “terrorists are here.”
Footage from the day Arif was abducted has been circulating showing him in a jeep, his face covered in blood and his hands tied. In January last year, Hamas released a video showing that he was still alive.
Daniela Gilboa, now 20, told her commanders as of October 7 that she had seen people she suspected were Hamas militants who appeared to be preparing an attack. her mother, Orly, said on the podcast Manning Full People in August.
Orly said she heard from Daniela the morning of the attack but didn’t realize the explosions her daughter described were inside her base. She only fully appreciated the danger her daughter was in after receiving a “pray for me” message.
During the first night after she was taken, when Daniela’s mother was unable to identify her in any of the footage, she said she feared the worst. The next day, Daniela’s boyfriend and younger sister identified her in the videos that went viral, recognizing her by her ponytail and pajamas.
According to his mother Shera, Larry Albaugh enjoyed traveling and taking pictures. Speaking at a public event last fall, Shera told the audience that “we are all living in the shadow of kidnapping.”
On February 4, her daughter’s 19th birthday, Shira wrote a public letter to Larry that was published by the Israeli news site Ynet.
“There is no music in the house because you are the one who sings … there is no noise of cooking in the middle of the night … I miss you so much that my heart aches,” she wrote.
Naama Levy, 20, is one of five women who are more recognizable because they were so vividly captured on video in Gaza on the morning of October 7.
In the footage shared with NBC News, he is barefoot, wearing gray sweatpants and a black T-shirt, with his hands tied behind his back and blood on his ankles. A man wearing a flak jacket and carrying a gun can be seen pulling her by her light brown hair and pushing her into the car. There is blood on one of his arms.
Another video circulated by Levy’s family showed the moment of his arrest, with men tying his hands behind his back. With a bloodied face, Levi can be heard saying in Hebrew that he has friends in Palestine.
“A terrible video before October 7, with nothing to do with the name, turned her into everyone’s daughter,” her mother, Ayelet Levi-Schatcher, said in a speech last year in honor of International Women’s Day.
Levi Schechter said his daughter was involved in a youth program aimed at promoting peace and had volunteered at a nursery school for refugee children before the attack.
“She believed in the good in people, and so did I,” Levi Schechter said.
Tuva Lazarov reported from Jerusalem and Raf Sanchez from Tel Aviv. Astha Rajonshi reports from London.
