Middle East crisis live: Hamas releases six hostages as Israel prepares to free hundreds of Palestinians

Hamas has criticised Israel for postponing the release of the Palestinian prisoners, saying it is a “blatant violation” of the truce.

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Israel pushed back the release of the prisoners to 8pm earlier this evening – but it is now after 9pm in Israel.

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The terror group has said the delay violates the terms of the ceasefire deal and called on mediators to pressure Israel to “respect the ceasefire agreement and implement its provisions without stalling”, the Times of Israel reports.

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It is approaching 6pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here are the day’s main developments so far:

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  Hamas has released six hostages in Gaza today. Tal Shoham and Avera Mengistu were handed over to officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on stage in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Later, Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov and Omer Wenkert were released in Nuseirat in central Gaza. In the afternoon, Hisham al-Sayed, was transferred to the Red Cross without a ceremony and then crossed into Israeli territory.

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  Tal Shoham, Avera Mengistu, Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert and Hisham al-Sayed have all been returned to Israel. Mengistu and al-Sayed had been held by Hamas since they entered Gaza separately under unexplained circumstances around a decade ago. The family of al-Sayed described his return on Saturday as a “long-awaited moment”.

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  According to Israeli press reports, the release of 602 Palestinians from Israeli jail, scheduled for today in return for the latest six hostages released by Hamas, has been delayed by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government at least until a meeting of the security cabinet this evening.

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  The Palestinian Prisoners Club said that of the 602 Palestinians scheduled to be released from Israeli prisons today, 445 were captured in the Gaza Strip after 7 October 2023 and will be released back into Gaza.

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  The body of the Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas has been identified, Israel’s army radio reported early on Saturday, after the remains intitially retiurned were found to belong to someone else

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  The Bibas family say they have been provided no official details relating to how their loved one died – and have asked that the media stop sharing or publishing any details they hear. It comes after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released a description of how it claimed the children had died.

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  Hamas said on Saturday it was ready to move to the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal and to carry out a comprehensive hostage-prisoner exchange to achieve a permanent ceasefire and complete withdrawal of Israeli forces. The comments were made before reports that Israel would be delaying the release of more than 600 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

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  A third mass polio vaccination campaign began in Gaza on Saturday, Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists reported, with the aim of delivering the first dose to nearly 600,000 children across the Palestinian territory. Scores of children under the age of 10 received the dose at a mosque in Jabalia, in northern Gaza. The vaccination campaign involves multiple UN agencies, including the Israeli-boycotted UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees (Unrwa).

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  British doctors who worked in Gaza during the war have issued dire predictions over the long-term health of Palestinian civillians, warning that large numbers will continue to die. The prevalence of infectious disease and multiple health problems linked to malnutrition, alongside the destruction of hospitals and killing of medical experts, meant mortality rates among Palestinians in Gaza would remain high after the cessation of Israeli shelling.

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  Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, will travel to Lebanon for the funeral of longtime Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday, AFP reported, citing Iranian media. An Israeli airstrike killed Nasrallah on 27 September last year.

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According to Israeli press reports, the release of 602 Palestinians from Israeli jail, scheduled for today in return for the latest six hostages released by Hamas, has been delayed by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government at least until a meeting of the security cabinet this evening.

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British doctors who worked in Gaza during the war have issued dire predictions over the long-term health of Palestinian civillians, warning that large numbers will continue to die.

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The prevalence of infectious disease and multiple health problems linked to malnutrition, alongside the destruction of hospitals and killing of medical experts, meant mortality rates among Palestinians in Gaza would remain high after the cessation of Israeli shelling.

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British-Palestinian reconstructive surgeon, Prof Ghassan Abu-Sittah, who worked in al-Shifa and al-Ahli Arab hospitals in Gaza City shortly after the war began, said levels of malnutrition there were so acute that many children would “never recover”.

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Scientists have estimated that the total deaths from Israel’s war on Gaza could ultimately be as high as 186,000. The figure is almost four times higher than the 46,700 deaths that Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry have reported.

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Prof Nizam Mamode, a retired British transplant surgeon from Hampshire who last year worked at Nasser hospital in southern Gaza said the number of “non-trauma deaths” could ultimately be considerably higher than 186,000. One factor, he said, was the targeting of healthcare workers during the war.

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He said that of six vascular surgeons who once covered the north of the strip, just one had remained. There were no cancer pathologists left alive.

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Abu-Sittah said entire teams of medical specialists had been eradicated from Gaza, and the training required to replace them would take up to 10 years.

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“Certain specialities have been eviscerated,” he said. “There are no more nephrologists [a doctor specialising in kidney care] left. They’ve all been killed. There are no more board-certified emergency medicine physicians.”

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The 55-year-old plastic surgeon from London said the long-term health of people in Gaza depended on how quickly the territory and its infrastructure were rebuilt.

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A third mass polio vaccination campaign began in Gaza on Saturday, Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists reported, with the aim of delivering the first dose to nearly 600,000 children across the Palestinian territory.

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Scores of children under the age of 10 received the dose at a mosque in Jabalia, in northern Gaza. The vaccination campaign involves multiple UN agencies, including the Israeli-boycotted UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees (Unrwa), and comes at a time when Israel and Hamas are observing a ceasefire that has largely halted the fighting.

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Palestinian baby is vaccinated against polio, in Gaza City on Saturday.”,”caption”:”A Palestinian baby is vaccinated against polio, in Gaza City on Saturday.”,”credit”:”Photograph: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters”}},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

The World Health Organization (WHO) said the campaign aims to vaccinate more than 591,000 children by 26 February. Writing on X, the commissioner general of Unrwa, Philippe Lazzarini said:

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n

Over 1,700 Unrwa team members will take part in this campaign.

n

This campaign follows a recent detection of polio in wastewater, putting the lives of children at risk.”

n

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The previous two drives were conducted in late 2024 after the highly contagious disease resurfaced in Gaza for the first time in more than 20 years, reports AFP.

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After more than 16 months of war between Israel and Hamas, the humanitarian situation in Gaza is dire. Even before the hostilities began, the territory had been struggling under an Israeli-imposed blockade for more than 15 years.

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Much of the water infrastructure has been destroyed, leaving sewage to stagnate in open pools near densely populated neighbourhoods – conditions that contributed to the reemergence of the virus last autumn. The WHO reported on 19 February that traces of poliovirus had again been detected in wastewater samples.

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Palestinian boy is vaccinated against polio, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City.”,”caption”:”A Palestinian boy is vaccinated against polio, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City.”,”credit”:”Photograph: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters”}},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

Polio is highly contagious and can cause paralysis, primarily affecting children under the age of five. The disease has been nearly eradicated worldwide.

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Hoping for a lasting truce, Bassam al-Haou, a resident of Jabalia, brought his daughters to receive the vaccine. “I also hope for stability for our innocent children so they can remain safe from violence,” he told AFP.

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A sixth Israeli hostage freed on Saturday by Hamas militants after spending nearly a decade in captivity in Gaza is in the army’s custody and has crossed into Israeli territory, the military said, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

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“A short while ago, the returning hostage Hisham al-Sayed crossed the border into Israeli territory accompanied by IDF (military) and ISA (security agency) forces,” a statement from the military said, adding that he was “on his way to an initial reception point in southern Israel”.

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undated photo provided by Hostage’s Family Forum of Hisham al-Sayed.”,”caption”:”An undated photo provided by Hostage’s Family Forum of Hisham al-Sayed.”,”credit”:”Photograph: AP”}}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1740232242000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”08.50 EST”,”blockLastUpdated”:1740235881000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”09.51 EST”,”blockFirstPublished”:1740232379000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”08.52 EST”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”08.52″,”title”:”Sixth hostage now back in Israel, confirms military”,”contributors”:[],”primaryDateLine”:”Sat 22 Feb 2025 15.46 EST”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Sat 22 Feb 2025 01.32 EST”},{“id”:”67b9cbbb8f0835381101a2dc”,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

Hamas has handed over Israeli hostage Hisham al-Sayed to the Red Cross, Israeli media reports said, according to Reuters.

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The Israeli military said in a brief statement that one hostage was transferred to the Red Cross, without naming him.

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It’s just gone 2.30pm in Gaza and Jerusalem. If you’re just joining us, here are the day’s main developments so far:

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  Hamas has released five hostages in two separate ceremonies in Gaza. The group plans to release one more hostage later today.

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  Tal Shoham, Avera Mengistu, Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov and Omer Wenkert have all been returned to Israel. Mengistu had been in Gaza for 10 years.

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  In return, Israel is preparing to release more than 600 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

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  The body of the Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas has been identified, Israel’s army radio reported early on Saturday, after the remains intitially retiurned were found to belong to someone else

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  The Bibas family say they have been provided no official details relating to how their loved one died – and have asked that the media stop sharing or publishing any details they hear. It comes after the Israel Defense Forces (ID)F released a description of how it claimed the children had died.

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  Hamas said on Saturday it was ready to move to the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal and to carry out a comprehensive hostage-prisoner exchange to achieve a permanent ceasefire and complete withdrawal of Israeli forces.

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Israeli authorities have not provided any details regarding the killing of three Bibas family hostages after they were taken to Gaza during the 7 October attack by Hamas militants, the family said in a statement, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

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“Any publication of details (including references to the treatment of the bodies) is against the family’s wishes, and we ask that this be avoided,” the statement said. “The family has not received any such details from official sources,” it added.

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The family statement comes a day after IDF released a description of how it claimed the children had died.

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Three more Israeli hostages have been released in Gaza by Hamas. Live TV footage showed three men led on to a stage in Nuseirat in central Gaza by armed militants.

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Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov and Omer Wenkert were seen waving on stage in front of Hamas propaganda, reports the Times of Israel.

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Israeli hostage Avera Mengistu exits a military helicopter as he arrives to the Ichilov hospital after being released by Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel.”,”caption”:”Freed Israeli hostage Avera Mengistu exits a military helicopter as he arrives to the Ichilov hospital after being released by Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel.”,”credit”:”Photograph: Ariel Schalit/AP”}}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1740220813000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”05.40 EST”,”blockLastUpdated”:1740224978000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”06.49 EST”,”blockFirstPublished”:1740221130000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”05.45 EST”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”05.45″,”title”:”Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov and Omer Wenkert handed over to ICRC in Nuseirat”,”contributors”:[],”primaryDateLine”:”Sat 22 Feb 2025 15.46 EST”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Sat 22 Feb 2025 01.32 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Live footage has shown International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) vehicles arriving at a second site for Saturday’s hostages handover, reports Reuters. The ICRC vehicles are in central Gaza’s Nuseirat.

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More details soon …

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According to Reuters, Hamas said on Saturday it was ready to move to the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal and to carry out a comprehensive hostage-prisoner exchange to achieve a permanent ceasefire and complete withdrawal of Israeli forces.

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The two hostages in Rafah have been handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross and driven away in its vehicles.

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Welcome to our live coverage of the Middle East crisis. It’s just after 8.30am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv – here’s the latest news.

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Israel prepared on Saturday to receive six more hostages from Gaza in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, after accusations over the return of a misidentified body this week threatened to derail a fragile truce.

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After Hamas handed over another body on Friday, Israel’s army radio reported early on Saturday that it had been identified as Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas, adding that she was likely killed in captivity with her children.

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The six hostages set to be freed on Saturday are the last living hostages from a group of 33 due to be freed in the first stage of the ceasefire deal agreed last month, Reuters reports.

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Four of the hostages – Eliya Cohen, 27, Tal Shoham, 40, Omer Shem Tov, 22, and Omer Wenkert, 23 – were seized by Hamas gunmen during their attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. Another two, Hisham Al-Sayed, 36, and Avera Mengistu, 39, have been held by Hamas since they entered Gaza separately under unexplained circumstances around a decade ago.

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six Israeli captives due to be released by Hamas today”,”caption”:”The six Israeli captives due to be released by Hamas today.”,”credit”:”Photograph: AFP/Getty Images”}},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

In return, Israel is expected to release 602 Palestinian prisoners and detainees held in its jails in the latest exchanges under a ceasefire that has held up despite a series of problems that have come close to sinking it.

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Late on Thursday, Israel accused Hamas of violating the truce by handing over an unidentified body instead of the remains of Shiri Bibas that were due to be returned along with the bodies of her two small sons. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, vowed revenge for what he described as a “cruel and malicious violation” of the ceasefire agreement.

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Hamas said her remains appeared to have been mixed up with other human remains recovered from the rubble after an Israeli airstrike it said killed her and her two sons in November 2023, and on Friday the militant group handed over another body. The Bibas family – which became an indelible symbol of the 7 October attack – said in a statement on Saturday that “this morning we received the news we feared the most. Our Shiri was murdered in captivity and has now returned home to her sons, husband, sister and all her family to rest”.

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In other developments:

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  The Bibas family accused Netanyahu of failing to protect their loved ones during Hamas’s 2023 attack and of failing to bring them home. “There is no forgiveness for abandoning them on October 7, and no forgiveness for abandoning them in captivity,” said Ofri Bibas, the sister-in-law of Shiri Bibas, in a statement.

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  Netanyahu said he has ordered the Israeli military to carry out an intensive operation against what he called “centres of terrorism” in the West Bank. He also said on social media that he had ordered Shin Bet and police to increase “preventative” measures against attacks on Israeli cities. It followed a series of explosions on three parked buses in Bat Yam, a city outside Tel Aviv, on Thursday night. Authorities said they were a suspected terrorist attack. No injuries were reported.

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  More than half a million children have been left without education across Gaza and the West Bank, according to the International Rescue Committee. The NGO warned that vital aid for children in the region was being scuppered by increasing violence.

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  Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammed bin Salman held a meeting with Egyptian and Jordanian leaders described as “an informal brotherly gathering” by the state-run Saudi Press Agency. It came ahead of an Arab League summit likely to discuss the Gaza Strip after the US president, Donald Trump, proposed it “take over” the territory and permanently resettle its Palestinian residents, a plan Arab countries have universally rejected.

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  Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald will boycott St Patrick’s Day events in the US over Gaza. She and Northern Ireland’s first minister, Michelle O’Neill, said they would not attend the celebrations after Trump’s call to exile Palestinians from the territory.

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Long-term effects of Gaza war could quadruple Palestinian death toll, warn UK doctors

Mark Townsend

British doctors who worked in Gaza during the war have issued dire predictions over the long-term health of Palestinian civillians, warning that large numbers will continue to die.

The prevalence of infectious disease and multiple health problems linked to malnutrition, alongside the destruction of hospitals and killing of medical experts, meant mortality rates among Palestinians in Gaza would remain high after the cessation of Israeli shelling.

British-Palestinian reconstructive surgeon, Prof Ghassan Abu-Sittah, who worked in al-Shifa and al-Ahli Arab hospitals in Gaza City shortly after the war began, said levels of malnutrition there were so acute that many children would “never recover”.

Scientists have estimated that the total deaths from Israel’s war on Gaza could ultimately be as high as 186,000. The figure is almost four times higher than the 46,700 deaths that Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry have reported.

Prof Nizam Mamode, a retired British transplant surgeon from Hampshire who last year worked at Nasser hospital in southern Gaza said the number of “non-trauma deaths” could ultimately be considerably higher than 186,000. One factor, he said, was the targeting of healthcare workers during the war.

He said that of six vascular surgeons who once covered the north of the strip, just one had remained. There were no cancer pathologists left alive.

Abu-Sittah said entire teams of medical specialists had been eradicated from Gaza, and the training required to replace them would take up to 10 years.

“Certain specialities have been eviscerated,” he said. “There are no more nephrologists [a doctor specialising in kidney care] left. They’ve all been killed. There are no more board-certified emergency medicine physicians.”

The 55-year-old plastic surgeon from London said the long-term health of people in Gaza depended on how quickly the territory and its infrastructure were rebuilt.

New polio vaccination drive begins in Gaza

A third mass polio vaccination campaign began in Gaza on Saturday, Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists reported, with the aim of delivering the first dose to nearly 600,000 children across the Palestinian territory.

Scores of children under the age of 10 received the dose at a mosque in Jabalia, in northern Gaza. The vaccination campaign involves multiple UN agencies, including the Israeli-boycotted UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees (Unrwa), and comes at a time when Israel and Hamas are observing a ceasefire that has largely halted the fighting.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said the campaign aims to vaccinate more than 591,000 children by 26 February. Writing on X, the commissioner general of Unrwa, Philippe Lazzarini said:

Over 1,700 Unrwa team members will take part in this campaign.

This campaign follows a recent detection of polio in wastewater, putting the lives of children at risk.”

The previous two drives were conducted in late 2024 after the highly contagious disease resurfaced in Gaza for the first time in more than 20 years, reports AFP.

After more than 16 months of war between Israel and Hamas, the humanitarian situation in Gaza is dire. Even before the hostilities began, the territory had been struggling under an Israeli-imposed blockade for more than 15 years.

Much of the water infrastructure has been destroyed, leaving sewage to stagnate in open pools near densely populated neighbourhoods – conditions that contributed to the reemergence of the virus last autumn. The WHO reported on 19 February that traces of poliovirus had again been detected in wastewater samples.

Polio is highly contagious and can cause paralysis, primarily affecting children under the age of five. The disease has been nearly eradicated worldwide.

Hoping for a lasting truce, Bassam al-Haou, a resident of Jabalia, brought his daughters to receive the vaccine. “I also hope for stability for our innocent children so they can remain safe from violence,” he told AFP.

The family of the sixth freed Israeli hostage, Hisham al-Sayed, hailed his return on Saturday as a “long-awaited moment” after nearly a decade in Hamas captivity in Gaza.

“The Sayed family is moved by Hisham’s return home. After nearly a decade of fighting for Hisham’s return, the long-awaited moment has arrived,” the family said in a statement shortly after he crossed the border into Israeli territory, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Sixth hostage now back in Israel, confirms military

A sixth Israeli hostage freed on Saturday by Hamas militants after spending nearly a decade in captivity in Gaza is in the army’s custody and has crossed into Israeli territory, the military said, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“A short while ago, the returning hostage Hisham al-Sayed crossed the border into Israeli territory accompanied by IDF (military) and ISA (security agency) forces,” a statement from the military said, adding that he was “on his way to an initial reception point in southern Israel”.

The Palestinian Prisoners Club said that of the 602 Palestinians being released from Israeli prisons today, 445 were captured in the Gaza Strip after 7 October 2023 and will be released back into Gaza, reports the Times of Israel.

It adds that of the 602 prisoners and detainees, there are 50 serving life sentences.

Israeli authorities said 602 Palestinian prisoners and detainees are expected to be released today.

A couple of images, via the newswires, show vehicles of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) outside Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank:

Avera Mengistu, who was taken captive in Gaza more than a decade ago, and Tal Shoham, who was abducted during the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, were the first group of Israeli hostages to be released today.

Omer Shem Tov, Eliya Cohen and Omer Wenkert were later handed over in Nuseirat, with another hostage due to be released in exchange for more than 600 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

Hamas hands over Israeli hostage Hisham al-Sayed to Red Cross – report

Hamas has handed over Israeli hostage Hisham al-Sayed to the Red Cross, Israeli media reports said, according to Reuters.

The Israeli military said in a brief statement that one hostage was transferred to the Red Cross, without naming him.

The AFP news agency is reporting that the sixth Israeli hostage has been handed over to the Red Cross in Gaza.

We’ll bring you more on this when we get it…

The day so far

It’s just gone 2.30pm in Gaza and Jerusalem. If you’re just joining us, here are the day’s main developments so far:

• Hamas has released five hostages in two separate ceremonies in Gaza. The group plans to release one more hostage later today.

• Tal Shoham, Avera Mengistu, Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov and Omer Wenkert have all been returned to Israel. Mengistu had been in Gaza for 10 years.

• In return, Israel is preparing to release more than 600 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

• The body of the Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas has been identified, Israel’s army radio reported early on Saturday, after the remains intitially retiurned were found to belong to someone else

• The Bibas family say they have been provided no official details relating to how their loved one died – and have asked that the media stop sharing or publishing any details they hear. It comes after the Israel Defense Forces (ID)F released a description of how it claimed the children had died.

• Hamas said on Saturday it was ready to move to the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal and to carry out a comprehensive hostage-prisoner exchange to achieve a permanent ceasefire and complete withdrawal of Israeli forces.