Red Cross ambulances arrive in Rafah for latest hostage release

Relatives and friends of Eliya Cohen, 27, gather in Tel Aviv to watch the TV broadcast of his release by Hamas militants. Picture: Ohad Zwigenberg/AP

Red Cross ambulances have arrived in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah in preparation for the handover of six Israeli hostages to be freed on Saturday under the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal.

AP video showed the ambulances waiting among a crowd with a line of Hamas fighters nearby in Rafah, where two of the hostages are expected to be handed over.

The other four are to be handed over in central Gaza.

Hamas fighters are deployed in Rafah ahead of the planned release of two of six Israeli hostages set to be handed over to the Red Cross on Saturday (Jehad Alshrafi/AP)

The latest release of hostages – as well as the freeing of hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel – is set to go ahead despite increased tensions between Israel and Hamas that have clouded the future of the fragile ceasefire deal.

The exchange is going ahead after a dispute this week when Hamas initially handed over the wrong body for Shiri Bibas, an Israeli mother of two young boys abducted by militants.

The remains that Hamas transferred with her sons’ bodies on Thursday were later determined to be those of an unidentified Palestinian woman.

In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed revenge for “a cruel and malicious violation”, while Hamas suggested it had been a mistake.

On Friday night, the small militant group believed to have been holding Ms Bibas and her sons – the Palestinian Mujahedeen Brigades – said it handed over a second body.

On Saturday morning, Ms Bibas’s family said Israeli forensic authorities had confirmed the remains were hers.