A senior Hamas official has told AFP that the group will provide the names of four Israeli female captives to be freed the following day in the second exchange of a ceasefire agreement.

Once Hamas releases the four hostages on Saturday, Israel should free a group of Palestinian prisoners, though neither side has specified how many there will be.

“Today, Hamas will provide the names of four hostages as part of the second prisoner exchange,” said Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau based in Qatar. “Tomorrow, Saturday, the four women hostages will be released in exchange for a group of Palestinian prisoners, as agreed upon in the ceasefire deal.”

Naim also said that Palestinians displaced by the fighting in southern Gaza should be able to begin returning to the north of the devastated territory.

“An Egyptian-Qatari committee will oversee the implementation of this part of the agreement on the ground,” he said.

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