Hamas names six Israeli hostages to be released on Saturday

Hamas has named six Israeli hostages who are set to be released on Saturday.

They are Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov, Tal Shoham, Omer Wenkert, Hisham al-Sayed and Avera Mengisto.

Mr Mengisto and Mr al-Sayed are civilians who entered Gaza a decade ago and have been held there since.

The release is the final one in this phase of the Gaza truce deal.

Israelis who survived being held prisoner in Gaza have been released in small groups since the first six-week phase began last month.

Under the deal, brokered with the help of the US, hundreds of Palestinians prisoners have also been released.

Israel and Hamas have been at war ever since the latter carried out a massacre of 1,200 people in southern Israel on 7 October 2023 and took 251 hostage.

The new list of names comes amid heightened tensions between the parties after Israel claimed the body of hostage Shiri Bibas wasn't actually hers and it had instead received the remains of an "anonymous body without identification".

Hamas responded that Ms Bibas's remains appear to have been mixed with other human remains in what it claims was an "Israeli airstrike".

Her body was meant to be handed over on Thursday alongside the bodies of her two children.

The body of journalist and peace activist Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when he was abducted, was also returned.

The Bibas family has become a powerful symbol of the 251 Israelis kidnapped on 7 October - not least because Kfir was the youngest taken.

The children's father, Yarden Bibas, was released on 1 February as part of the ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel.

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