By Jeremy Diamond, Hira Humayun, Laura Izso and Helen Regan

Tel Aviv, Israel (CNN) — Four coffins said to contain the remains of Israeli hostages have been received by Israel, as Palestinian prisoners and detainees were released in Gaza and the occupied West Bank in an overnight exchange as part of the fragile ceasefire deal.

The exchange marks the start of the final swap in the 42-day truce between Israel and Hamas, which is set to expire this weekend unless an agreement is struck to extend it. The two sides were meant to begin talks on a permanent end to the war early this month, but it is unclear whether those discussions have begun.

Hamas’ military wing, the Qassam Brigades, said Wednesday that the remains of hostages Tsachi Idan, Itzhak Elgarat, Ohad Yahalomi and Shlomo Mantzur would be handed over. All four were take captive in the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023.

The latest transfer was held in private after the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said an agreement had been reached for the bodies to be returned “in an agreed-upon procedure and without Hamas ceremonies.”

Israel is expected to release a total of 642 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, according to Palestinian Prisoners Media Office. Among them are detainees, including women and children, who have been held without charge, prisoners who were serving life sentences and long sentences, as well as the longest-serving Palestinian political prisoner.

The handover had been in doubt since Saturday, when Israel failed to release 620 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in protest at what it said were “humiliating ceremonies” conducted by Hamas during previous hostage releases.

In the early hours of Thursday, the Red Cross said it handed over the four coffins to the Israeli military at the Kerem Shalom crossing through Egyptian mediators, and the process of identifying the bodies had now begun on Israeli territory.

“The families of the hostages are being continuously updated on the situation and will be given an official notification at the end of the full identification process,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said, asking the public to respect the privacy of the hostages’ families.

Red Cross buses carrying hundreds of Palestinians detained by Israel arrived in Gaza early Thursday. Wearing light gray uniforms, the Palestinians could be seen disembarking the buses outside of the European Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis to be reunited with their families. Crowds of journalists and residents watched as what sounded like celebratory gunfire could be heard in the background.

Israel conducting identification checks

After crossing into southern Israel, the four coffins believed to contain the bodies of Israeli hostages were transported to the National Center for Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv, police said early Thursday.

Images released by police showed a convoy of emergency vehicles traveling down a dark highway. One image showed a crowd of people waving Israeli flags as the vehicles drove through a roundabout.

Communities from Kibbutz Nahal Oz and Sha’ar Hanegev gathered and waited.

The Israeli military has previously said that Mantzur, who at 85 was the oldest hostage taken on October 7, 2023, was killed during the Hamas-led attack and his body was held in Gaza. It had not confirmed the deaths of the others.

Earlier, Israel said it would send a team of experts from the National Center for Forensic Medicine to the Kerem Shalom border crossing “to assist in identifying the deceased hostages.”

An Israeli official has previously told CNN that it would not release the Palestinian prisoners until it had positively identified the bodies of the hostages.

A previous release caused uproar when one of the bodies handed over by Hamas – that was supposed to be that of the hostage Shiri Bibas – was found instead to be that of an unidentified Gazan woman. Hamas later blamed a mix-up and returned Bibas’ body.

If the four bodies are identified as belonging to the hostages, the release would mean that Hamas and its allies now hold 59 captives according to Israeli figures. Of those, more than half are thought to be dead by the Israeli government. One, Hadar Goldin, has been held, dead, since before October 7, 2023.

Earlier Saturday, Hamas had released six Israeli hostages from Gaza in two public ceremonies and one private transfer, in what was the final return of living hostages in the first phase of a ceasefire deal that began last month.

Hugs and cheers for released detainees

In Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, scenes of jubilation greeted a group of Palestinian prisoners who were seen disembarking from a Red Cross vehicle in the early hours of Thursday.

The Palestinian Prisoners Media Office said earlier that 43 prisoners were expected to be released into the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Footage shows emotional reunions, including a daughter hugging and kissing her released father, and a man tightly holding his child.

“We have been out taken out of suffering as if we have been dug out from our own graves. No prisoner has had the experience of having their own release delayed twice,” released prisoner Yaha Shrida told Reuters.

Among the 642 Palestinian prisoners and detainees expected to be released, just under 500 are expected to be sent back to Gaza, including 445 who have been detained in the enclave since the war began in October 2023 and have been held without charge, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society.

The detainees include 44 children and two women.

Advocates for Palestinians prisoners and detainees have expressed repeated concerns about the delay in their release, and Israel’s treatment of those held in detention. The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society says 69 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli detention since the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, of whom 38 were detained in Gaza.

The group released in Ramallah and East Jerusalem early Thursday are among 151 prisoners who were serving life sentences and long sentences, according to Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office. Ninety-seven of them will be sent into exile while the remaining 11 are from Gaza, where they will be sent back, and were detained prior to October 7, 2023.

Among the Palestinians due for release is Nael Barghouti, the longest-serving Palestinian political prisoner. Nael has been in and out of prison since he was first arrested in 1978 and accused of engaging in attacks against the Israeli military.

He was released in a 2011 Israel-Hamas deal, which saw 1,100 Palestinians exchanged for one Israeli soldier held by Hamas for five years, Gilad Shalit. Nael was re-arrested by Israeli forces in 2014 for “Hamas membership,” according to Israeli media, and has since been serving a life sentence.

Also among them is Bilal Abu Ghanem, who is serving concurrent life sentences for the murder of three Israelis on a Jerusalem bus in 2015.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.