Updates: Israel begins releasing Palestinians, Hamas hands over four bodies

Ori Goldberg, an Israeli political commentator, has welcomed the latest captive-prisoner exchange and says he sees no option for Netanyahu’s government but to enter talks for phase two.

“Despite Hamas’s handover ceremonies, despite returning the wrong female corpse, despite Israel’s obstructions and heated rhetoric, and flagrant violations, this has happened. The bodies have been returned. Phase one has ended,” he told Al Jazeera from Tel Aviv.

“I don’t see Netanyahu’s government as having any kind of path forward but to enter negotiations for phase two. Especially as President Trump and his emissary, Steven Witkoff, have emphasised that they are interested in seeing phase two carried out.”

Goldberg noted that Israeli right-wing politicians have been pushing for a resumption of the war.

“Still, I think the pressure that is being applied to Netanyahu about the urgent need to return all the hostages before considering any such option is very viable and very much present in Israeli public consciousness, and while the hard-right and the settlers are pressing for a continuation of the war, they are now standing in direct contrast to both Washington and the Israeli public,” he said.

“I don’t see how Netanyahu can prefer their version.”

Earlier, we reported that Israel’s prime minister’s office (PMO) said forensic experts have now received the remains of four Israeli captives returned by Hamas and are working to identify them.

In that same statement, the PMO has said, “The families of the hostages are being continuously updated on the situation.”

“At the end of the full identification process, they will be given an official notice,” it said.

We will bring you updates when we have them.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is finalising its preparations to receive the seventh batch of Palestinian detainees in the European Hospital in Khan Younis.

Once they arrive at the medical point, they will fulfil registration protocols and will undergo a quick medical check.

This will assess their fitness in order to be reunited with their families and supporters who are still anxiously waiting in the courtyard of this medical facility.

The entire process has been coordinated with Gaza’s Health Ministry, to facilitate the reunion of those prisoners with their families

At the moment, we are hearing that ICRC teams are at the Karem Abu Salem crossing, waiting for the arrival of the buses carrying the Palestinian detainees.

The Israeli military has received the bodies of the four dead captives from the Red Cross, Israel’s prime minister’s office says in a statement.

Israeli forensic experts are now carrying out an initial examination, it added.

As we previously reported, the bodies were handed over at the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom in Israel) crossing in Gaza. The PMO has now said this was carried out with “Egyptian mediation”.

Very few people thought we would get to the end of phase one of the Gaza ceasefire deal. It seemed very fragile and about to fall apart at various points.

We saw Israeli attacks during various parts of phase one and it just didn’t look like we would see the exchange of 1,900 captives on the Israeli side for 33 captives from Hamas.

The question is, what comes next? As far as Trump is concerned, something that looks a lot like Dubai in Gaza. He posted on Truth Social some pretty provocative pictures of himself and Netanyahu, shirtless in swimming trunks with towers behind them.

Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff has done a very good job of getting to this point, and I think it would have been impossible unless he had committed to at least some vision of what was embedded in phase two of the agreement.

When it comes to getting phase one back in place, my sense is that Witkoff may have had some influence on the Israelis to snap back in. We don’t know for certain, but we do know he cancelled a trip to Israel, and then the Israelis snapped back into basically abiding by the terms of this phase.

The Palestinian Red Crescent says it has received Kazem Zawahra, a Palestinian who has been in a coma for months while in Israeli custody, Al Jazeera Arabic reports.

Zawahra will be transferred to a hospital in the city of Beit Jala in the occupied West Bank.

Zawahra is among more than 600 Palestinian prisoners expected to be released tonight.

The Red Cross has handed over the coffins of the four captives to Israeli soldiers at the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom in Israel) crossing in Gaza, according to media in Israel.

The coffins are now in Israeli territory, the YNet News site reported.

Israel is now expected to carry out a forensic identification of the bodies near the Gaza boundary, according to The Times of Israel.

We can confirm that the International Committee of the Red Cross teams managed to receive the Israeli bodies from the military wing of Hamas in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, which had been the location for the handover process.

Later, the vehicles started to move to the Karem Abu Salem crossing to be handed over to the Israeli side to undergo a comprehensive forensic check by experts and medical teams who were waiting on the other side of the occupied Palestinian territory.

Under the current agreement that has been recently brokered by Egypt between Hamas and Israel, the exchange must take place simultaneously.

It means that once Israel has received the dead bodies of the captives, they will start immediately to release Palestinian prisoners.

And that’s what we have seen in the occupied West Bank.

Here in Gaza, families are still waiting, in harsh winter conditions, to be reunited with their loved ones in an atmosphere that has been quite charged with anticipation.

Al Jazeera is reporting from Amman because it is banned from Israel and the occupied West Bank. 

There are 115 Palestinian Palestinians serving life and long sentences who are being released. Only 43 of them will be released to the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem. Ninety-seven of them will be exiled out of the occupied Palestinian territory, and 11 are originally from Gaza, so they will be returning to the Gaza Strip.

There are also 445 Palestinians taken forcibly, who disappeared from Gaza. We are expecting their release as well. And those people are from all walks of life. They were taken from their homes, from makeshift shelters, from UN schools, from hospitals, and never charged with anything.

They’ve really been held by Israeli authorities, in some cases, in undeclared camps in order for these exchanges to happen.

There’s also 46 women and children who will be released in exchange for the bodies that were handed over: the four bodies handed over last Thursday, and now these four bodies – a total of two women and the rest are all children under 18.