Hamas released the names of the next four Israeli hostages to be freed under the Gaza cease-fire deal , as mediators hope to build momentum that could lead to a lasting end to the war.
The militant group will on Saturday release Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag, all female soldiers, Abu Obeida, the spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, said Friday.

A combination picture shows Israeli hostages Karina Ariev, Naama Levy, Liri Albag and Daniela Gilboa, soldiers who were seized from their army base in southern Israel during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, in these undated handout pictures. Courtesy of Bring Them Home Now/Handout via REUTERS.
The multiphase deal’s protocols call for female hostages—civilians and soldiers—to be released first, followed by elderly and wounded men and then the bodies of the dead.
Only a few hostages meet the criteria for the first releases. The announcement of the four names means that two other women—29-year-old civilian Arbel Yehoud and another soldier, Agam Berger—will likely remain captives until the next round of hostage releases scheduled for next weekend.
Ariev, Gilboa, Levy, Albag and Berger were all taken from a military base near Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched attacks that sparked the war in the Gaza Strip.
The two sides negotiated the first phase of the cease-fire under the expectation that Hamas would first release female civilians and then female soldiers. Which hostages are released and when is hugely sensitive in Israel, where some families of captives are unsure whether their loved ones are alive or dead .
Israel had expected Yehoud to be among those freed this Saturday, a person familiar with the deal had said. Whether Israel will take issue with the delayed release of Yehoud wasn’t immediately clear.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it had received the list of hostages to be released Saturday and would respond later.
Hamas complicated expectations about Saturday’s exchange earlier this week when it said it would free four female soldiers this weekend. That raised concerns in Israel about Yehoud and highlighted a multitude of possible disagreements that could hold up a precariously balanced deal.
On Thursday, a Hamas official had suggested Yehoud might not make Saturday’s list, saying four female hostages would be released and whether they were civilians or soldiers was subject to “field conditions as deemed appropriate” by the group.
Yehoud was taken from a kibbutz on the edge of Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel believes that she was held at least for some time by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a Hamas ally. The female soldiers are now all either 19 or 20 years old and were taken from their army base while conducting mandatory military service.
The list of 33 to be released in the first phase also includes the names of one other female civilian, Shiri Bibas, and her two children, Ariel and Kfir, who were 4 years and 9 months, respectively, when taken. Hamas said in November that they were killed in an Israeli bombing. The Israeli military said it investigated the Hamas claim but hasn’t confirmed their deaths.
As part of the deal, Israel has said it would release 50 Palestinian prisoners for each female soldier, including some jailed for life sentences, meaning 200 Palestinians are likely to be freed Saturday.
The militant group released three female civilians last Sunday in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners. Hamas is expected to provide an update Saturday on the status of the remaining hostages. After this weekend, hostages will be freed in groups over another five weeks.
“While we are filled with joy for the four hostages scheduled to be released,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an advocacy group that represents hostages’ families, said Thursday, “we simultaneously face the terrifying possibility of learning that some of our loved ones might not be alive.”
The hostages have suffered through a war in Gaza that has proved one of the deadliest in modern Middle Eastern history, reducing much of Gaza to ruins and killing more than 47,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health authorities, who don’t say how many were combatants. The Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel that sparked the war left 1,200 people dead and 250 taken hostage.
As of Friday, Israel says 91 hostages taken in the Oct. 7 attacks remain in Gaza, most of them Israeli. They include more than 30 who Israel has concluded are no longer alive, though Israeli and U.S. officials privately believe the number of dead is much higher. Three additional hostages, taken before the Hamas-led attacks, bring the total to 94.
The U.S., Qatar and Egypt mediated the multiphase cease-fire deal, which came into effect Sunday and could lead to a permanent end to the fighting in the besieged enclave if all the phases are completed.
But even small details such as the sequencing of releases risk derailing it. The last cease-fire between the two sides in November 2023 in part collapsed over the issue, as Israel refused to continue the truce when Hamas offered to turn over male civilians and dead bodies before releasing female civilians Israel believed were still alive. Some of the elderly men whom Hamas had offered to release later died during the fighting in Gaza.
Adding to the coming weekend’s complexity, Gaza civilians are expected to begin moving back toward their homes in northern Gaza under the terms of the deal, with screening an important factor. Netanyahu had repeatedly pledged to stop Hamas militants from regrouping by moving through the strip.
Technical teams from mediating countries are working in Cairo on a mechanism for screening people for weapons as they travel through Gaza, Arab mediators said. Two American security contractors and one Egyptian intelligence-affiliated security company have been appointed to inspect people for weapons as they move around the enclave, the mediators said.
The technical teams are also debating a mechanism to reopen the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt on the Palestinian side, which would allow for more aid to flow into the enclave and people, especially the injured, to leave.
The process “is so fragile,” said Mairav Zonszein, a senior Israel analyst for the International Crisis Group. But, she said, there was a “huge sigh of relief on the Israeli side that hostages are going to return” in the first phase of the cease-fire. And for that reason, “Israel is not going to derail it five days in,” she said.
Israel and Hamas have agreed to negotiate toward a permanent end to the fighting and the release of more hostages in a second phase, talks that will again be mediated by the U.S., Qatar and Egypt.
Some members of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition have criticized the current truce and are urging the leader to return to fighting Hamas in Gaza after the first phase. So far, however, Netanyahu appears committed to the first phase of the cease-fire after facing pressure from the Trump administration to see it through.
—Saleh al-Batati contributed to this article.
Write to Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com , Rory Jones at Rory.Jones@wsj.com and Anat Peled at anat.peled@wsj.com