GAZA CITY/ RAMALLAH: Hamas’s armed wing confirmed it will hand over Saturday six hostages held alive in the Gaza Strip as part of the ongoing ceasefire deal with Israel.
The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement on Friday that the release would occur as planned.
Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum published the names of the six hostages earlier this week, naming them as Eliya Cohen, Tal Shoham, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert, Hisham Al-Sayed and Avera Mengistu.
Meanwhile, Israel will free 602 inmates from jails on Saturday as part of a hostage-prisoner swap with Hamas, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group.
Among those released, 445 are individuals from Gaza who were arrested after Hamas’ October 7 attack that sparked the war, 60 are serving long sentences, 50 are serving life sentences, and 47 were re-arrested after a 2011 prisoner exchange, Amani Sarahneh, spokeswoman for the NGO, told AFP.
Hamas armed wing confirms it will release six Israeli hostages Saturday
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Hamas armed wing confirms it will release six Israeli hostages Saturday
- Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum published the names of the six hostages earlier this week
- The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said Israel will free 602 inmates from jails
Kurdish official says Kurds committed to deals with Damascus despite Aleppo violence
- Ahmad said that “we are committed to peace and to resolving problems through dialogue”
- She accused Syria’s authorities of “choosing the path of war” by attacking Kurdish districts in Aleppo
BEIRUT: Syria’s Kurds are committed to agreements reached with the government, a senior official from their administration told AFP on Friday, despite days of violence in the northern city of Aleppo.
The government and Kurdish forces have traded blame over who started the fighting on Tuesday, which came as they have struggled to implement a deal reached last March to merge the Kurds’ administration and military into the country’s new government.
Elham Ahmad, a senior official in the Kurdish administration in Syria’s northeast, said that “we are committed to peace and to resolving problems through dialogue. But until now, the government... does not want a solution.”
She accused Syria’s authorities of “choosing the path of war” by attacking Kurdish districts in Aleppo.
“With these attacks, the government side is seeking to put an end to the agreements that have been reached. We are committed to them and we are seeking to implement them,” she said.
The government announced a truce early Friday after days of deadly violence that has forced thousands to flee, and granted Kurdish fighters a deadline to leave two districts they control.
But the fighters were refusing to leave the Ashrafiyeh and Sheikh Maqsud areas and intended to “resist” the Syrian army encircling them, a statement by the local councils of the two neighborhoods said.
Ahmad said that “the United States is playing a mediating role... we hope they will apply pressure to reach an agreement.”
A diplomatic source told AFP on Friday that US envoy Tom Barrack was headed to Damascus.
