HAMAS has provided Israel with the names of four hostages it plans to release on Saturday under the Gaza Strip ceasefire deal.

There was no immediate confirmation of the names from the Israeli authorities. The hostages are to be freed in exchange for 180 Palestinians imprisoned, often without charge, by Israel.

Israel believes about a third, possibly as many as half, of the more than 90 hostages remaining in Gaza have died. Hamas has not released definitive information on how many captives are still alive or the names of the dead.

This will be the second round of exchanges since the ceasefire came into effect last Sunday when three hostages and 90 Palestinian prisoners were released.

The hostages were taken during the October 7 2023 cross-border attack by Palestinian resistance fighters, during which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

Israel’s subsequent invasion has killed well over 47,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children.

Israel has imprisoned thousands of Palestinians, both before and after the October 7 attack. 

The ceasefire has enabled thousands of Palestinians to reunite with scattered family members and to salvage what remains of their homes and their belongings. But those displaced from the north of the coastal enclave have had to wait.

“The first thing I’ll do, I’ll kiss the dirt of the land on which I was born and raised,’ said Nadia al-Debs, one of the many people gathered in makeshift tents in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah today as they prepared to set out for home in Gaza City. 

Gaza’s Health Ministry reported on Thursday that, despite the ceasefire, Israeli tank shells targeting a residential building in the Tel al-Sultan district west of Rafah had killed two Palestinian brothers. 

The Israeli military claimed its troops had “operated against threats posed to them in the Gaza Strip, in accordance with the terms of the ceasefire agreement.”

Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that his military might not complete its withdrawal from Lebanon by a ceasefire deadline agreed with the Hezbollah resistance group.

Under the deal, reached in November, Israel is supposed to complete its pullout from the country by Sunday. 

Hezbollah fighters are due to pull back north of the Litani river, with the Lebanese armed forces patrolling a buffer zone in southern Lebanon alongside United Nations peacekeepers.

Mr Netanyahu said in a statement that the ceasefire “is based on the understanding that the withdrawal process could possibly continue beyond the 60 days.”

There was no immediate response from Lebanon or Hezbollah to the Israeli leader’s statement.