Gaza City, February 19 (RHC)-- Israel is reportedly set to release all Palestinian women and children under 19, who were arbitrarily abducted from the Gaza Strip, in exchange for the Hamas resistance group handing over the bodies of four captives.

Israeli media report that the Palestinians who will be freed had been kidnapped despite not being involved in Hamas' October 7, 2023 operation.

Hamas is expected to announce the names of the four captives on Thursday morning, with their bodies scheduled to be returned to the occupied territories later that day.

Thursday marks the 33rd day of the ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel that ended the latter's 15-month-long genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

Israeli officials said the delivery of the captives' bodies was included in the yet-to-be-published annex to the truce agreement.

Gaza resistance fighters have handed three Israeli captives over to the Red Cross in an exchange for 369 Palestinians to be released later in the latest such swap under an ongoing truce deal.

Israel launched its brutal Gaza onslaught on October 7, 2023, after Hamas carried out its historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

The Tel Aviv regime failed to achieve its declared objectives of freeing captives and eliminating Hamas despite killing at least 48,284 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in Gaza.

After 15 months of genocide, Israel accepted Hamas’ longstanding negotiation terms under the Gaza ceasefire, which began on January 19th.  The ceasefire consists of three phases, each lasting 42 days. In phase one - the current phase - a total of 33 Israeli captives will be released in exchange for around 2,000 Palestinian abductees held in the regime’s jails.

So far, Hamas has released 19 Israeli captives and five Thai nationals in return for 985 Palestinian abductees.