Middle East latest: Hostages and prisoners set to be released as ceasefire holds

Hamas is set to free three more Israeli hostages as well as five Thai captives on Thursday, and Israel is to release another 110 Palestinian prisoners, in the third such exchange since a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip took hold earlier this month.

The tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is aimed at ending the war in Gaza and securing the release of dozens of hostages held by the militant group, as well as hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned or detained by Israel.

Under the ceasefire, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have jubilantly returned to northern Gaza over the past three days. However, their homecoming has been bittersweet as nearly everyone has friends or relatives who died, and many northern neighborhoods have been transformed into an apocalyptic landscape of devastation by more than 15 months of war.

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Here's the latest:

Mother of Thai hostage hears he's about to be freed

Khammee Lamnao, the mother of Thai hostage Surasak Lamnao, said the Thai embassy in Israel had called her Wednesday to let her know her son was one of the five who were to be released.

“I cannot wait to see my son,” the 53-year-old said. “I’ve been waiting for him for a year and five months.”

Surasak had been working in the agricultural sector in Israel for 15 months when he was taken hostage during the October 2023 attack.

Thirty-one Thai nationals are believed to have been taken hostage when Hamas attacked Israel in October, 2023. Of those, 23 have been released, two have been confirmed to have died and six more are believed to be still in Hamas’ captivity.

Five are due to be released, and it is not clear at the moment what the status of the sixth person is.

There were about 30,000 Thai workers — mostly laborers in the agricultural sector — in Israel prior to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, when militants stormed through a border fence and killed hundreds of Israelis, as well as 38 Thais.

At least 7,000 are known to have returned home on government evacuation flights, but many others decided to stay for the opportunity to earn wages far higher than at home.

Who's set to be released today?

The Israelis set to be released are Agam Berger, 20, a female soldier; Arbel Yehoud, a 29-year-old civilian woman; and Gadi Moses, an 80-year-old man. The names of the Thai hostages who were set to be freed were not released.

Yehoud was at the center of the dispute about the sequence of releases that briefly rocked the ceasefire over the weekend. Israel says she was supposed to have been freed Saturday and delayed the opening of crossings to northern Gaza when she was not. Berger was abducted alongside four other female soldiers, who were freed on Saturday.

Of the 110 people set to be released from prisons in Israel, 30 are serving life sentences after being convicted of deadly attacks against Israelis. Zakaria Zubeidi, a prominent former militant leader and theater director who took part in a dramatic jailbreak in 2021 before being rearrested days later, is also among those set to be released.

Ceasefire holds for now but next phase will be harder

Today's exchange is part of a deal that paused fighting in Gaza on Jan. 19. Israeli forces have pulled back from most of Gaza, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to return to what remains of their homes and humanitarian groups to surge assistance.

It calls for Hamas to release a total of 33 hostages, including women, children, older adults and sick or wounded men, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Israel says Hamas has confirmed that eight of the hostages to be released in this phase are dead.

The initial Phase One ceasefire paused fighting for six weeks, calling for the sides to use that time to negotiate a second phase in which Hamas would release the remaining hostages and the ceasefire would continue indefinitely. The war could resume in early March if an agreement is not reached.

Negotiating a phase two deal could be difficult. Hamas says it won’t release the remaining hostages without an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, after reasserting its rule over Gaza within hours of the truce.

Meanwhile, Israel says it is still committed to destroying Hamas, and a key far-right partner in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is already calling for the war to resume after the ceasefire’s first phase.