Hamas Says It Will Release Six Living Hostages, Hand Over Four Bodies
Hamas claims Bibas children and mother dead, bodies to be returned Thursday; Israel hasn’t confirmed their status.
The terrorist group Hamas will release six hostages on Saturday as part of the hostages-for-terrorists swap, Israeli officials confirm.
The hostages to be freed have been identified as Tal Shoham (39), Avera Mengistu (38), Hisham al-Sayed (37), Eliya Cohen (27), Omer Wenkert (23) and Omer Shem-Tov (22).
Ethiopian-Israeli Mengistu and Arab-Israeli al-Sayed have been in Hamas captivity since 2014 and 2015, respectively. The Gaza-based terrorists kidnapped the other four hostages on October 7, 2023.
Coming home alive.
Others aren’t so lucky.
Hamas are monsters. Real life monsters.
Tal Shoham
Omer Shem Tov
Eliya Cohen
Omer Wenkert
Hisham Al-Sayed
Avera Mengistu pic.twitter.com/TYLSIWjf6N— Hillel Fuld (@HilzFuld) February 18, 2025
“The families of Omer Wenkert, Omer Shem Tov, Eliya Cohen, Tal Shoham, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed announce that they have been informed by Israeli authorities that their loved ones are slated to be released by Hamas on Saturday,” The Times of Israel reported. “Al-Sayed and Mengistu have been captive in Gaza for over a decade, after entering the Strip of their own accord. All the others were abducted on October 7, 2023.”
The terrorist group will also return the bodies of four Israeli hostages (murdered by terrorists since the October 7 attack), Hamas’ Gaza-based deputy leader Khalil al-Hayya said in a video message aired Tuesday.
The Jerusalem Post reported:
The Prime Minister’s Office confirmed on Tuesday Hamas will release six hostages on Saturday after the terror group said it will also transfer the bodies of four slain hostages from Gaza to Israel on Thursday.
Hamas is still holding six living hostages who are supposed to be released in the first phase. Their families have now been informed they will be released on Saturday, KAN reported.
Families of the kidnapped were informed of the release of the six living hostages on Saturday. (…)
Later on Tuesday, an Israeli official noted that as part of the framework of the deal, Israel was committed to allowing caravans and heavy engineering equipment into Gaza after following inspection.
The source added that subject to Hamas’s compliance with the deal, Israel would begin to allow the entrance of such tools in a gradual and controlled manner.
🚨The families of hostages Omer Wenkert and Eliya Cohen received an official confirmation that they will be released on Saturday. The families announced it. pic.twitter.com/aDtTCPFFJF
— Raylan Givens (@JewishWarrior13) February 18, 2025
Hamas claims Bibas children and mother dead, bodies to be returned Thursday; Israel hasn’t confirmed their status
The senior Hamas terrorist, al-Hayya, claimed that bodies to be released this week would include those of the Bibas family: Shiri and her two young children, Kfir (9-month-old) and Ariel (4-yearold), who were kidnapped by the terrorists from their home on October 7, 2023.
The children’s father, Yarden, was released by Hamas two weeks ago.
The Bibas family: We have been informed that Shiri, Kfir, and Ariel, who were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7th, are now listed among the deceased. But until we see them, our journey is not over.
I’m praying for a miracle. I’m shattered. pic.twitter.com/k7yRo6cctj
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) February 18, 2025
The Israeli government did not confirm the deaths of the Bibas children and their mother. “Israel has not confirmed their deaths, and the prime minister’s office urged the public not to distribute ‘photos, names and rumors,'” the Associated Press noted.
The Bibas family is refusing to take the Hamas terrorist at his word and continues hoping against hope for the safe return of their loved ones after 500 long days of captivity, the news website YNET reported:
The Bibas family announced in a statement on Tuesday evening that they were “shaken” to hear the Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya say that Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas would be among the four bodies of killed hostages that will be handed over on Thursday.
The family stressed in the statement that while they are aware of the reports that their loved ones are dead, they have not received an official confirmation on the matter from Israeli authorities.
“Until we receive definitive confirmation, our journey is not over,” the family said in a statement released by theHostages and Missing Families Forum.
The Bibas children were stolen from Israel alive. pic.twitter.com/hhmvjx8MuD
— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) February 18, 2025
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Comments
They murdered the beautiful red headed babies and their mother
There will be no forgiveness on earth
It’s just a “if you like women and babies, you can’t live here” message. If you want to oppress them all the more for it, it supports their “we’re more oppressed than you are” Holocaust anti-card.
It’s a losing argument.
You obsess about your bizarre and invented oppression sweepstakes, while absolutely missing the actual plot.
I can’t imagine why this appeals to you, except that you seem to feel some imaginary sense of superiority while expounding it.
You really are a “special” kind of case, aren’t you.
A mother and her two small children were murdered, and the best you can do is “it’s a losing argument.”
Take a good look in the mirror, dude.
No, it is a “we are savages and you refuse to descend to our level to fight back” message. Oppress them? No. Exterminate them. All of them. Let those who run the fastest carry the message to never do this again.
Words can’t express my contempt for you.
Gaza need to be burned to the ground along with everyone in it, at some point. Get the living hostages out, then just open up on them. Make those low life’s beg for the grave.
Trump announced that if ALL the hostages were not released by last Saturday, “All hell will break out.” Well Saturday has come and gone. As I wrote before, Trump was simply green lighting Israel to take action as opposed to the US doing anything. Nevertheless his statement begins to have a hollow ring. Whatever happened to “speak softly and carry a big stick?” The Israeli government occupies a tough spot. The hostage families want their loved ones back, which inhibits action. I can’t help but feel rage against Hamas and their Gazan sympathizers. What is to be done? I’m glad I don’t have to decide. I’m tempted to advocate wiping out the entire population of the strip. That’s an ugly emotion. I must pray for forgiveness.
Trump has given Israel open Carte Blanche to take Hamas out and Iran
He didn’t say America would bomb the hell out of them personally
Israel will get her people out and then …
I would advocate moving the entire population out into the adjacent desert (think big tent city), and then flatten gaza killing anyone who remains, Also kill anyone who hinders the gazans leaving. Afterward they can move back, Vet everyone coming and going for terrorist affiliation.
Moving them back is a terrible idea.
@0oden — In your view, what should Trump have done?
I think he should have been more careful with his phraseology. Announce that the US will unconditionally support Israel in whatever action it thinks necessary. A part of me wants to destroy Gaza and everyone in it. How can anyone not be moved to rage seeing these wonderful, beautiful children murdered by the most vile creatures on the planet? But rage is not conducive to clear thinking. One thing for sure: nothing like this must ever happen again. At the very least move the entire population of Gaza somewhere else.
Offf the face of the earth would be a good place
Mars will need settlers and Arabs are great at settling. Paging Elon Musk,
President Donald Trump single-handedly collapsed the most destructive idea of the last hundred years—Palestine. There was never a “Palestine”. Arabs who occupy the Jewish homeland of 3600 years, are not indigenous. So all of the EuroNazis who cry about the poor “Palestinians” are no better the Germans who supported Hitler. The Muslims who only started to call themselves “Palestinians in the late 1969, don’t want their own country (which they never had), they want to murder every Jew they can.
One small correction. They started applying that term to themselves in 1964, not 1969.
At the suggestion of the Soviet KGB. Arafat was a KGB asset.
BTW: I forget who but there was an arab author who in the 1900s did call the arabs palestinians but it never caught on until arafat renamed his organization plo.