Middle East crisis live: Israel says body of Shiri Bibas handed over as Hamas prepares to release six more hostages

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Images from Rafah are showing a convoy of Red Cross vehicles arriving at the scene as crowds and armed and masked militants stand nearby.

A convoy of Red Cross vehicles is now heading to a hostage handover site set up by Hamas in Rafah in southern Gaza, the Times of Israel is quoting an Israeli defense official as saying.

The Red Cross is expected to receive two hostages there, the report says. According to Al Jazeera, hostages Tal Shoham and Avera Mengistu will be freed in Rafah. The other four – Omer Shem-Tov, Eliya Cohen, Omer Wenkert and Hisham al-Sayed – will be released later in Nuseirat, central Gaza.

The Times is also reporting that at the Rafah handover location, Hamas is displaying weaponry it claims was stolen from the Israeli military in the October 2023 attack that sparked the war.

The report says:

On the stage prepared by Hamas in Rafah are the usual placards with messages including “We are the flood” as well as military weapons and equipment the group claims were stolen from the IDF on October 7 2023.

One piece is a gun on which the group wrote “Ravshatz”. the Hebrew acronym for the head of a community’s local security team, indicating it was taken from such an individual killed by terrorists during the October 7 attack.

Israelis are gathering in Tel Aviv as they wait for the anticipated release of six hostages held by Palestinian militants in Gaza. These images have come in from Israel:

People gather at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Saturday. Photograph: Abir Sultan/EPA

Israelis in Tel Aviv waiting for the Gaza release. Photograph: Oded Balilty/AP

A woman in Hostages Square. Photograph: Abir Sultan/EPA

A woman mourns next to pictures of late Israeli hostages Ariel (L) and Kfir (R) Bibas, Oded Lifshitz (C-top) and Shiri Bibas (C-bottom) as people gather at Hostages Square ahead of the seventh hostage-prisoner release. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images

The Israeli military expects Hamas to release the six Israeli hostages from two separate locations in Gaza starting from 9am local time, the Times of Israel is reporting a defence official as saying.

Hamas will first release hostages from southern Gaza’s Rafah and afterwards from Nuseirat in the Strip’s centre.

The official says there could be delays.

The six hostages will be taken by the Red Cross to IDF troops in the Gaza Strip, the report says.

From there, the troops will escort them to an army facility near Re’im for an initial checkup and to meet with family members before they are airlifted to Sourasky and Rabin hospitals in central Israel.

Al Jazeera reports that two of the hostages will be freed in Rafah, while the other four will be released in Nuseirat.

Here are some of the images coming in from Gaza ahead of the expected handover.

Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, make preparations in Rafah to hand over six Israeli hostages under the ceasefire deal. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

A stage looks to have been readied in Rafah before the hostage release. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Hamas militants at the scene. Photograph: Ramadan Abed/Reuters

A Hamas member with a gun display in Rafah on Saturday. Photograph: Hatem Khaled/Reuters

Israeli media reports in the past hour said Hamas was setting up stages in southern and central Gaza ahead of the expected release of six Israeli hostages this morning.

Live images from Gaza are showing crowds gathering and armed, masked militants grouped at the scene.

Opening summary

Welcome to our live coverage of the Middle East crisis. It’s just after 8.30am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv – here’s the latest news.

Israel prepared on Saturday to receive six more hostages from Gaza in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, after accusations over the return of a misidentified body this week threatened to derail a fragile truce.

After Hamas handed over another body on Friday, Israel’s army radio reported early on Saturday that it had been identified as Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas, adding that she was likely killed in captivity with her children.

The six hostages set to be freed on Saturday are the last living hostages from a group of 33 due to be freed in the first stage of the ceasefire deal agreed last month, Reuters reports.

Four of the hostages – Eliya Cohen, 27, Tal Shoham, 40, Omer Shem Tov, 22, and Omer Wenkert, 23 – were seized by Hamas gunmen during their attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, Reuters reports. Another two, Hisham Al-Sayed, 36, and Avera Mengistu, 39, have been held by Hamas since they entered Gaza separately under unexplained circumstances around a decade ago.

The six Israeli captives due to be released by Hamas today. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

In return, Israel is expected to release 602 Palestinian prisoners and detainees held in its jails in the latest exchanges under a ceasefire that has held up despite a series of problems that have come close to sinking it.

Late on Thursday, Israel accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire by handing over an unidentified body instead of the remains of hostage Shiri Bibas that were due to be returned along with the bodies of her two small sons.

Hamas said her remains appeared to have been mixed up with other human remains recovered from the rubble after an Israeli airstrike it said killed her and her two sons in November 2023. On Friday, the militant group handed over another body to the Red Cross. The Bibas family – which became an indelible symbol of the 7 October attack – said in a statement on Saturday that “this morning we received the news we feared the most. Our Shiri was murdered in captivity and has now returned home to her sons, husband, sister and all her family to rest”.

In other developments:

• The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, vowed revenge for what he described as a “cruel and malicious violation” of the ceasefire agreement after authorities determined that a body released by Hamas on Thursday was not Shiri Bibas. The body was determined to be of an unidentified woman from Gaza.

• The Bibas family accused Netanyahu of failing to protect their loved ones during Hamas’s 2023 attack and of failing to bring them home. “There is no forgiveness for abandoning them on October 7, and no forgiveness for abandoning them in captivity,” said Ofri Bibas, the sister-in-law of Shiri Bibas, in a statement.

• Netanyahu said he has ordered the Israeli military to carry out an intensive operation against what he called “centres of terrorism” in the West Bank. He also said on social media that he had ordered Shin Bet and police to increase “preventative” measures against attacks on Israeli cities. It followed a series of explosions on three parked buses in Bat Yam, a city outside Tel Aviv, on Thursday night. Authorities said they were a suspected terrorist attack. No injuries were reported.

• More than half a million children have been left without education across Gaza and the West Bank, according to the International Rescue Committee. The NGO warned that vital aid for children in the region was being scuppered by increasing violence.

• Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammed bin Salman held a meeting of Egyptian and Jordanian leaders described as “an informal brotherly gathering” by the state-run Saudi Press Agency. It came ahead of an Arab League summit likely to discuss the Gaza Strip after the US president, Donald Trump, proposed it “take over” the territory and permanently resettle its Palestinian residents, a plan Arab countries have universally rejected.

• Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald will boycott St Patrick’s Day events in the US over Gaza. She and Northern Ireland’s first minister, Michelle O’Neill, said they would not attend the celebrations after Trump’s call to exile Palestinians from the territory.