The Times of Israel is liveblogging the day’s events here. Let us hope Hamas is not arrogant enough to repeat the threatening mob scene they performed when they released fhe female soldiers on Thursday.
Three Israeli hostages slated for release by Hamas
 ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
from Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response ...
on Saturday were named Friday as Ofer Calderon, 54, Keith Siegel, 65, and Yarden Bibas, 35, officials said.
Israeli officials said that the families had been notified and that Israel accepted the Hamas list.
Siegel, a dual Israeli-US citizen originally from North Carolina, was taken captive with his wife Aviva from Kibbutz Kfar Aza during the Hamas-led invasion and massacre in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Aviva was freed during a previous ceasefire in November 2023.
Calderon was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7 with two of his children, who were both freed in the previous ceasefire.
Bibas, his wife Shiri, and children Ariel and Kfir were all kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz. Kfir was 10-months-old and Ariel was 4 at the time. Yarden was maimed during his kidnapping, and was seen being kidnapped to Gaza separately from his wife and children.
Hamas has claimed that Shiri and the two boys were killed in captivity. Israel has not confirmed this claim, but has expressed "grave concern" for their fate. Earlier this week, Israel reportedly demanded that Hamas clarify the condition of Shiri and the two small boys, who are all on the list of 33 hostages being freed in the first, 42-day phase of the hostage-ceasefire deal.
Fears for the fate of the Bibas trio have grown, as Hamas did not return them among the first hostages released. Living women and kiddies were supposed to be freed first under the deal, followed by injured and infirm men and men over 50.
Hamas has said that 15 of the 23 hostages yet to be returned under the current phase are alive, without offering specifics on the condition of individuals, and that eight are dead. Israel has said that this matches its own information.
So far, 10 Israeli hostages have been freed as part of the current deal, which mandates the release of 33 so-called "humanitarian hostages" during its first 42-day phase, with fighting stopped in the Strip. Five Thai hostages have also been freed.
As those hostages are gradually released, Israel is to release some 1,904 Paleostinian security prisoners, including more than 100 serving life sentences for deadly terror attacks. Ninety security prisoners are to be freed Saturday, nine of them believed to be holy warriors serving life terms.
The three-phase deal’s later stages are subject to negotiations with the stated goal of reaching a "sustainable calm" in the enclave, alongside the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza, the release of more Paleostinian security prisoners and an Israeli withdrawal from the Strip.
The hostages are among 251 Israelis and foreigners kidnapped on October 7, 2023, when some 3,000 Hamas-led holy warriors burst into Israel, killing some 1,200 people, amid rampant acts of brutality and overt targeting of civilians.
KEITH SEIGEL
Siegel, 65, a US citizen originally from North Carolina, was taken captive with his wife, Aviva Siegel, 62, from their home on Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7, when holy warriors attacked their community, killing and abducting Israelis and burning kibbutz homes.
The couple was driven into Gaza in their own car, along with a neighbor and her two children.
Aviva Siegel was released in November 2023 as part of the temporary ceasefire deal, which was brokered by Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
and the United States.
Within a week, Aviva Siegel was at a massive rally at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, holding up a placard with Keith’s picture.
Their daughter Shir Siegel who also lives on Kfar Aza, was away that weekend, and tried that morning to call her father, who didn’t answer his phone. Her call to her mother’s phone was cut off, and they wrote on the family WhatsApp group that they couldn’t speak.
Keith Siegel is known as a quiet, kind man, dedicated to his wife, children and grandchildren. In April 2024, Hamas released a propaganda video showing Seigel alive alongside fellow hostage Omri Miran, 46. In the edited three-minute-long video, Siegel and Miran identified themselves, spoke directly to their families, and said they are hoping for a hostage deal that would see them and other hostages returned home.
OFER CALDERON
Calderon, 54, was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7 with two of his four children, Erez and Sahar, when Hamas title='terrorists '>holy warriors stormed the kibbutz, killing over 100 residents and some 15 foreign agricultural workers, and taking about 80 hostages.
Calderon and his children initially beat feet from their shelter through the window during the Hamas onslaught, into the fields of Kibbutz Nir Oz, where they were later taken hostage.
Sahar Calderon, 16, and Erez Calderon, 12, were released during the November 2023 ceasefire-hostage deal.
Hadas Calderon, Ofer’s ex-wife, was in the sealed room of her home on the kibbutz, holding the door handle against the terrorists. Their elder son, Rotem, 19, also survived in the safe room of his apartment, in the kibbutz area for young adults. His older sister Gaya, 21, was in Tel Aviv. Grandmother Carmela Dan was at her house down the street with Hadas Calderon’s niece, Noya Dan. Their bodies were found on October 19, 2023.
Ofer, who holds dual Israeli-French citizenship, marked his 53rd and 54th birthdays in captivity in Gaza.
YARDEN BIBAS
Bibas, 35, was kidnapped separately from his wife and children, who were all taken from Kibbutz Nir Oz.
On the morning of October 7, Bibas continuously texted with his sister, Ofri, letting her know what was happening in Kibbutz Nir Oz, where he lived with Shiri, 32 and their two boys, Ariel, 4 and Kfir, then 9 months.
"At 6:30 a.m., he wrote about the rockets," Ofri said in a Kan interview. Yarden wrote about the holy warriors entering the kibbutz, and then he wrote, "’Fuck,’" said Ofri.
He texted his sister that there was terrible fighting, and intense pressure to try and hold off the wave of Hamas holy warriors who entered Nir Oz. The holy warriors ended up committing a brutal massacre, in which some 180 of the kibbutz’s 400 residents were killed or kidnapped.
He told his sister that his little boys didn’t know how to keep quiet, and he told her it felt like the end.
Several hours later, the family saw a video circulating of Shiri, holding both boys in her arms, a look of terror on her face as she was surrounded by terrorists, her boys facing her chest, a blanket covering them. Yarden is not in the video. Neither are Shiri’s parents, Margit Silberman Shnaider and her husband Yosi Silberman, who also lived on Nir Oz and were presumed missing but whose bodies were eventually identified.
Later, the Bibas family found a video of Yarden, injured with blood around his head, surrounded by terrorists.
Ariel, now 5, and Kfir, who turned 2 earlier this month, are the only children left in Gaza, after the November 2023 deal that saw the release of more than 100 of the people seized in the attack. In November 2023, the IDF said that the Bibas family had been transferred by Hamas to another Paleostinian terror group, in Khan Younis. That same month, Hamas released a propaganda video indicating Yarden was alive.
In February 2024, the IDF released what it said was recently discovered footage showing Shiri Bibas and her two young children surrounded by button men in the Gaza Strip hours after they were kidnapped, and expressed serious fears over the captive family.
On Wednesday, Israel demanded that Hamas clarify the condition of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir, Hebrew media reported. IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari said last week that there are "grave concerns" for their fate.
Relatives stated Monday that they are still holding onto hope that the Bibas family will return from captivity in Gaza, although Shiri and the boys should have been among the first seven civilian hostages, released in the last 10 days.
"We said then, and we say now: We hold on to hope and continue waiting for their return. We await clarity regarding their condition," said the wider family in the statement.
Once Seigel, Calderon and Bibas are released on Saturday, 13 of the 33 first-phase hostages will have been returned to Israel, along with the five Thai hostages released by Hamas on Thursday separately from the deal between Israel and the terror group.
According to a list given by the Hamas terror group to Israel on Monday, eight of the 33 hostages that were slated to be released during the first phase of the ceasefire are dead, meaning that 12 of the remaining 20 first-phase hostages are alive. Officials said that the Hamas document matched Israel’s existing information.
Seventy-nine of the 251 hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the body of an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014. The body of another IDF soldier, also killed in 2014, was recovered from Gaza this month.
Israel is set to free 90 Paleostinian security prisoners on Saturday in exchange for the three Israeli hostages, "nine of whom are serving life sentences and 81 of whom have long sentences," the Paleostinian Prisoners’ Club spokeswoman Amani Sarahneh told AFP on Friday.
Hostages’ stories: Gadi Mozes paced 7km a day in tiny cell, soldiers rationed grains of rice
[IsraelTimes] Report says captives exposed to media heard their families talking about them, knew they ‘hadn’t been forgotten’; Mozes did not learn his daughter was alive until he was freed
Emily Damari’s mom: My daughter was held in UNRWA facilities, denied medical treatment
[IsraelTimes] ‘It’s a miracle she survived,’ Mandy Damari says after call with British PM Keir Starmer; UN agency, which Israel just banned, calls for ‘very serious claim’ to be investigated.
Parents of freed IDF soldier Agam Berger to Trump: ‘Thank you for making us all do the right thing’
[IsraelTimes] Meirav Berger, mother of released hostage Agam Berger, offers a heartfelt, spiritual message of thanks for the return of her daughter, in a public statement at Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva.
“Thank you to the creator of the world, to the nation of Israel and the Jewish world, to those who stood with us and wrapped us in endless love and overturned every rock to bring our Agam home to us,” she says.
Her husband, Agam’s father, Shlomi Berger, thanks US President Donald Trump in English:
“Thank you, thank you for your care and for making us all do the right thing,” he says. “We will never forget your help, your generosity and your leadership, God bless the United States of America.”
Meirav also thanks the IDF soldiers, the country’s decision-makers, the family’s community in Holon, as well as their friends and family.
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