Sawt Falasteen - Hamas calls on Israel to start talks for next phase of truce

The swap, undertaken under cover of night, was the last in an initial series agreed under the terms of the fragile truce, which took effect on January 19 and largely halted the war in Gaza.

Under the first phase of the deal, Hamas freed 25 living hostages and returned to Israel the bodies of eight others, some of them dual nationals.

Israel, in return, was expected to free around 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, among them women and minors, in staggered releases.

The Palestinian Prisoners Club advocacy group said Israel had freed 596 prisoners in exchange for the bodies on Thursday.

It said 46 prisoners were yet to be released to complete the swap -- "all women and minors from Gaza" who were arrested after the war began.

In Gaza and the West Bank, AFP journalists saw hundreds of prisoners being released early Thursday, and Egypt's state-linked Al-Qahera News said 97 of them who were marked for deportation by Israeli authorities had arrived on the Egyptian side of Gaza's Rafah border crossing.

Negotiations for a second phase of the deal, which is meant to lead to a permanent end to the war, have yet to begin.

"We have cut off the path before the enemy's false justifications, and it has no choice but to start negotiations for the second phase," Hamas said on Telegram.

The Palestinian prisoners released Thursday were supposed to have been freed at the weekend, but Israel stopped the process following outrage over elaborate ceremonies Hamas had been holding to hand over hostages seized in its unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack.

Several of the Palestinians released to Ramallah were hoisted in the air on arrival, some of them conducting interviews from the shoulders of friends or relatives.

A group of women broke into tears as they gathered around one released prisoner, and a child held aloft made victory signs with both hands.

Earlier, Hamas said the return of the four Israeli bodies would take place in private "to prevent the occupation from finding any pretext for delay or obstruction".

Hours after the coffins were handed over, an Israeli group advocating for the release of all hostages from Gaza confirmed "with profound sorrow" the identities of the four bodies Hamas returned on Thursday.

Ohad Yahalomi, Tsachi Idan, Itzik Elgarat and Shlomo Mansour "have been laid to eternal rest in Israel", the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.

- 'Negotiations will begin' -

In Washington, US President Donald Trump's top envoy to the Middle East said Israeli representatives were en route to talks on the next phase of the ceasefire.

"We're making a lot of progress. Israel is sending a team right now as we speak," Steve Witkoff told an event for the American Jewish Committee.

"It's either going to be in Doha or in Cairo, where negotiations will begin again with the Egyptians and the Qataris."

Israel has yet to comment on Witkoff's remarks regarding talks for a second phase, which should also see the release of dozens of hostages still being held by militants.

Despite the ceasefire, there have been sporadic incidents of violence in Gaza.

The Israeli military said it carried out air strikes on several launch sites after a projectile was fired from there on Wednesday, though the munition fell short inside the Palestinian territory.

- 'Our hearts ache' -

Israel vowed to destroy Hamas after its October 7, 2023 attack, the deadliest in the country's history, and it has made bringing back all the hostages taken that day a central war aim.

President Isaac Herzog said Thursday that Israel had a "moral obligation" to bring back all hostages from Gaza captivity.

"Our hearts ache upon receiving the bitter news of the identification of" the four bodies, he said.

French President Emmanuel Macron Thursday called on Hamas to stop its "barbarism" after confirmation that French-Israeli hostage Yahalomi was among four bodies returned.

Macron said on X that he shared the "immense pain" of Yahalomi's family, adding that "France lost 50 of its children in the October 7 abomination".

The October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,215 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

T.Khatib--SF-PST