Hamas was set to hand over the bod­ies of four hostages late Wednes­day in ex­change for Is­rael’s re­lease of hun­dreds of Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers, days be­fore the first phase of their cease­fire will end.

Is­rael has de­layed the re­lease of over 600 Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers since Sat­ur­day to protest what it called the cru­el treat­ment of hostages dur­ing their han­dover by Hamas. The mil­i­tant group has called the de­lay a “se­ri­ous vi­o­la­tion” of the cease­fire and said talks on a sec­ond phase aren’t pos­si­ble un­til the Pales­tini­ans are freed.

Plans for Wednes­day’s re­lease of the hostage bod­ies were con­firmed by Is­rael’s gov­ern­ment and Hamas’s mil­i­tary wing in a state­ment by spokesman Abu Obei­da.

Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu’s of­fice said the re­lease of the bod­ies would be car­ried out with­out a cer­e­mo­ny, as op­posed to past Hamas re­leas­es with stage-man­aged events in front of crowds. Is­rael, along with the Red Cross and U.N. of­fi­cials, have called the cer­e­monies hu­mil­i­at­ing for the hostages.

Is­rael’s prison ser­vice said it was prepar­ing to re­lease hun­dreds of Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers. The Pales­tin­ian Pris­on­ers Club, which rep­re­sents cur­rent and for­mer pris­on­ers, said the re­lease would hap­pen at 11 p.m.

Ex­pect­ed in the re­lease is an un­spec­i­fied num­ber of women and teenagers de­tained since the mil­i­tant group’s Oct. 7, 2023 at­tack on Is­rael that sparked the con­flict in Gaza.

The han­dover would com­plete both sides’ oblig­a­tions un­der the cease­fire’s first phase, dur­ing which Hamas is re­turn­ing 33 hostages, in­clud­ing eight bod­ies, in ex­change for near­ly 2,000 Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers.

Mean­while, the fam­i­ly of a hostage in Gaza said it was no­ti­fied he is dead and his body was among those to be re­turned Wednes­day. The fam­i­ly did not say who in­formed them. No­ti­fi­ca­tions typ­i­cal­ly come from Is­rael’s mil­i­tary.

Tsachi Idan was tak­en from Kib­butz Na­hal Oz. His el­dest daugh­ter, Maayan, was killed as mil­i­tants shot through the door of the safe room. Hamas mil­i­tants broad­cast them­selves on Face­book hold­ing the fam­i­ly hostage in their home as two younger chil­dren plead­ed to let them go.

French Pres­i­dent Em­manuel Macron post­ed on X about Is­raeli-French hostage Ohad Ya­halo­mi, whose body is al­so ex­pect­ed to be re­leased: “In these sus­pend­ed hours of pain and an­guish, the na­tion stands by their side.”

A frag­ile cease­fire in per­il

The cease­fire’s six-week first phase ex­pires this week­end. U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s Mid­dle East en­voy, Steve Witkoff, has said he wants the sides to move in­to ne­go­ti­a­tions on the sec­ond phase, dur­ing which all re­main­ing hostages held by Hamas would be re­leased and an end to the war would be ne­go­ti­at­ed.

Talks on the sec­ond phase were sup­posed to be­gin the first week of Feb­ru­ary.

The cease­fire, bro­kered by the Unit­ed States, Egypt and Qatar, end­ed 15 months of war that erupt­ed af­ter Hamas’ 2023 at­tack on south­ern Is­rael that killed about 1,200 peo­ple. About 250 peo­ple were tak­en hostage.

Is­rael’s mil­i­tary of­fen­sive has killed more than 48,000 Pales­tini­ans, ac­cord­ing to Pales­tin­ian health of­fi­cials, who don’t dif­fer­en­ti­ate be­tween civil­ian and com­bat­ant deaths but say over half the dead have been women and chil­dren.

The fight­ing al­so dis­placed an es­ti­mat­ed 90% of Gaza’s pop­u­la­tion and dec­i­mat­ed the ter­ri­to­ry’s in­fra­struc­ture and health sys­tem.

Is­rael buries moth­er, sons killed in cap­tiv­i­ty

Tens of thou­sands of Is­raelis lined high­ways as the bod­ies of a moth­er and her two young sons, killed in cap­tiv­i­ty in Gaza, were tak­en for bur­ial on Wednes­day.

The bod­ies of Shiri Bibas and her sons, 9-month-old Kfir and 4-year-old Ariel, were hand­ed over ear­li­er this month.

Is­rael says foren­sic ev­i­dence shows the chil­dren were killed by their cap­tors in No­vem­ber 2023, while Hamas says the fam­i­ly was killed along with their guards in an Is­raeli airstrike.

The hus­band and fa­ther, Yarden Bibas, was ab­duct­ed sep­a­rate­ly and re­leased alive in a dif­fer­ent han­dover. His wife and their chil­dren were buried in a pri­vate cer­e­mo­ny near Kib­butz Nir Oz near Gaza, where they were liv­ing when they were ab­duct­ed. They were buried in a joint grave next to Shiri’s par­ents, who were killed in the at­tack.

An­oth­er in­fant in Gaza dies of hy­pother­mia

With peo­ple liv­ing in tent camps and dam­aged build­ings in Gaza in chilly weath­er, health of­fi­cials said an­oth­er in­fant had died of hy­pother­mia Wednes­day, bring­ing the toll to sev­en over the past two weeks.

Dr. Mu­nir al-Boursh, di­rec­tor gen­er­al of Gaza’s Health Min­istry, said the ba­by less than two months old died due to the “se­vere cold wave” that has hit the Pales­tin­ian en­clave.

Tem­per­a­tures have been be­low 10 de­grees Cel­sius (50 de­grees Fahren­heit) at night and the last few days have been par­tic­u­lar­ly cold.

Lid­man re­port­ed from Tel Aviv, Is­rael. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writer David Ris­ing in Bangkok con­tributed to this re­port.

By SAMY MAGDY and MELANIE LID­MAN

CAIRO (AP)