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

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

• 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.

• 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”.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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 (IDF) 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. The comments were made before reports that Israel would be delaying the release of more than 600 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

• 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).

• 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.

• 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.

Release of 602 Palestinians from Israeli prisons delayed – Israeli press reports

Julian Borger

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.

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.

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.

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”.

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.

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.