The Israeli military says the sixth and final hostage was released by Hamas in the latest exchange on Saturday and has arrived back in Israel even as heightened tensions clouded the future of the fragile ceasefire deal.
The six included three Israeli men seized from the Nova music festival and another abducted while visiting his family in southern Israel when militants stormed across the border in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that triggered Israel’s nearly 16-month campaign in the Gaza Strip.
Two of the hostages had been held by Hamas for around a decade since they each entered Gaza on their own.
Five of the captives were handed over in staged ceremonies that the Red Cross and Israel have condemned in the past — brought out by masked, armed Hamas fighters in front of hundreds of Palestinians before being transferred to Red Cross vehicles.
In the central town of Nuseirat, Omer Wenkert, Omer Shem Tov, and Eliya Cohen were posed alongside Hamas fighters on the stage. A beaming Shem Tov even kissed two militants next to him on the head and blew kisses to the crowd.
Ohad Zwigenberg / AP
Watching the release, Cohen’s family and friends in Israel chanted “Eliya! Eliya! Eliya!” and cheered when they saw him for the first time. Shem Tov’s grandmother ululated in joy, shrieking, “Omer, my joy! My life!” as she saw him.
Cohen’s fiance, Ziv Abud, avoided capture by hiding under a pile of bodies the night of the concert. Abud, whose story was told in See It Now Studio’s documentary “We Will Dance Again,” told the Daily Telegraph that she knows the man who could come out will be very different from the person who was snatched by Hamas terrorists more than 16 months ago.
“We will start with the healing and go from there,” Abud said ahead of his release. “I want to believe that he is still the same Eliya, that he will love the same things we used to love. We loved to travel. We loved to dance. But we will see. He has had all this time of people telling him what he must do. When he is home he will need to do what he wants to do. And I will be with him, of course.”
The three men were put in Red Cross vehicles that then headed for Israel. The Israeli military said the three were in their custody and would undergo an initial medical assessment before being reunited with their families.
During that reunion, Shem Tov called his parents “heroes” as they embraced, laughing and crying, near the Gaza border.
“You’re amazing. You have no idea how much I dreamt of you.”
Earlier Saturday, two other hostages — Tal Shoham, 40, and Avera Mengistu, 38 — were freed. Arriving in Israel, both were taken to medical centers for examination.
Mengistu, an Ethiopian-Israeli, entered Gaza on his own in 2014. His family told Israeli media he has struggled with mental health issues. Watching the handover on Israeli media, Mengistu’s family broke out into a Hebrew song, “Here is the Light,” as they saw him for the first time in more than a decade.
“This is an unforgettable moment, where all emotions are rapidly mixing together. Our Tal is with us,” Shoham’s family said in a statement, calling for a deal the be reached for the release of all those still captive. Shoham’s wife, two young children, and three other relatives who were abducted with him were freed in a November 2023 exchange. “There is a window of opportunity; we must not miss it.”
Ariel Schalit / AP
Later, Israel’s military said the final hostage, Hisham Al-Sayed, 36, was released. The Bedouin Israeli crossed on his own into Gaza in 2015. His family has told Israeli media he was previously diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Later Saturday, over 600 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel should be released. It is the largest one-day prisoner release in the ceasefire’s first phase. The prisoners set for release include 50 serving life sentences, 60 with long sentences, 47 who were released under a previous hostage-for-prisoner exchange and 445 Palestinians who were seized by Israeli troops in Gaza since the war began.
Among those set to be released is Nael Barghouti, 67. He has spent 45 years in Israeli jails, more than any other Palestinian. He was first arrested in 1978 for killing an Israeli bus driver. He was released in a prisoner exchange deal in October 2011, then rearrested in 2014 on grounds that he violated his release terms. According to the current exchange agreement, freed prisoners convicted of killing Israelis must be deported, leaving Barghouti unable to return to his home in the West Bank.
Remains of Shiri Bibas returned, family says
The latest hostage exchange is going ahead after tensions mounted over a grisly and heart-wrenching dispute triggered this week when Hamas initially handed over the wrong body for Shiri Bibas, an Israeli mother of two young boys abducted by militants.
The remains that Hamas transferred with her sons’ bodies on Thursday were later determined to be those of an unidentified Palestinian woman. In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed revenge for “a cruel and malicious violation,” while Hamas suggested it had been a mistake.
On Friday night, the small militant group believed to have been holding Bibas and her sons — the Palestinian Mujahedeen Brigades — said it handed over a second body. On Saturday morning, Bibas’ family said Israeli forensic authorities had confirmed the remains were hers.
Oded Balilty / AP
“For 16 months we sought certainty, and now that it’s here, it brings no comfort, though we hope it marks the beginning of closure,” the family said.
The dispute over the body’s identity raised new doubt about the ceasefire deal, which has paused over 15 months of war but is nearing the end of its first phase. Negotiations over a second phase, in which Hamas would release dozens more hostages in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal, are likely to be even more difficult.
First phase of ceasefire set to end next week
Hamas has said it will also release four more bodies next week, completing the first phase of the ceasefire. If that plan is carried out, Hamas would retain about 60 hostages, about half of whom are believed to be alive.
Yael Alexander, whose son Edan is thought to be the last living American hostage, said the situation is a “nightmare.”
“If suddenly they decided ‘OK, it’s not working, let’s stop and that’s it, no releases of hostages, this will be a disaster for us the families,” Alexander said.
The statement from the Bibas family said “there is no more important goal” than the release of the remaining hostages.
Hamas has said it won’t release the remaining captives without a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal. Netanyahu, with the full backing of the Trump administration, says he’s committed to destroying Hamas’ military and governing capacities and returning all the hostages, goals widely seen as mutually exclusive.
Trump’s proposal to remove about 2 million Palestinians from Gaza so the U.S. can own and rebuild it has thrown the ceasefire into further doubt. His idea has been welcomed by Netanyahu but universally rejected by Palestinians and Arab countries.
Trump said Friday that he was “a little surprised” by rejections of the proposal by Egypt and Jordan and that he would not impose it.
“I’ll tell you, the way to do it is my plan. I think that’s the plan that really works. But I’m not forcing it. I’m just going to sit back and recommend it,” Trump said in a Fox News interview.
Israel’s military offensive killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
The offensive destroyed vast areas of Gaza, reducing entire neighborhoods to rubble. At its height, the war displaced 90% of Gaza’s population. Many have returned to their homes to find nothing left and no way of rebuilding.
“We’ve had enough of war,” Wahiba Muheisen, who lost her husband and three sons and now lives in a tent beside her ruined home, told CBS News. “I’ve lost so much.”