(Reuters) -A senior Hamas official said on Wednesday that negotiators from his Palestinian militant group and Israel had exchanged lists of prisoners and hostages who would be released should a deal be reached during the ongoing Gaza ceasefire talks in Egypt.
Israel hopes the talks will lead to the release and recovery of the remaining 48 hostages seized during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks, 20 of whom are believed to be alive.
Most of those freed so far were released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners during two ceasefires, one in November 2023 and a second in early 2025. Others have been rescued by Israeli forces during the course of the war. Fifty-nine bodies have been retrieved by Israeli forces of hostages who were either killed before they were taken to Gaza or died in captivity, either killed by their captors or in Israeli strikes.
The following are some key moments of the hostage crisis:
2023
October 7 - Hamas-led gunmen storm into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and capturing 251 Israeli and foreign hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
October 20 - Hamas releases two Israeli-American hostages.
October 23 - Hamas releases two elderly Israeli hostages.
October 30 - Israeli forces rescue a female Israeli soldier who had been kidnapped on Oct. 7.
November 21 - Israel and Hamas announce a truce, which will last seven days, to exchange hostages held in Gaza for Palestinians jailed in Israel, and let in more aid. During the ceasefire, 81 Israeli women and children and 24 foreign hostages are released. Israel releases 240 Palestinian women and teenage prisoners and detainees, before war resumes on December 1.
December 15 - Israeli forces mistakenly kill three Israeli hostages in Gaza. The incident prompts some of the strongest criticism within Israel of the conduct of the war.
2024
Throughout the year, families of hostages lead a campaign to pressure Israel's leaders to secure a deal for the hostages' release. They hold street protests, appear almost daily at parliament, meet with world leaders and are frequently interviewed in the media.
February 12 - The Israeli military rescues two hostages during a raid in Gaza's southern Rafah neighbourhood.
June 8 - Israeli forces rescue four hostages held by Hamas in a raid on a residential neighbourhood in Nuseirat, Gaza, in one of the single deadliest Israeli assaults of the war.
August 27 - Israeli special forces recover an Israeli hostage from a tunnel in southern Gaza.
August 31 - Israel discovers the bodies of six hostages in a Hamas tunnel in southern Gaza. Their deaths spark mass protests in Israel demanding the government enter a hostage deal with Hamas. The six were shot dead by their captors 48-72 hours before being found by Israeli forces, according to Israeli health ministry estimates.
December 2 - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump says there will be "hell to pay" in the Middle East if hostages held in the Gaza Strip are not released before his Jan. 20 inauguration.
2025
January 8 - The Israeli military says the body of Youssef Ziyadne, an Israeli Bedouin hostage, has been found in a tunnel in Gaza. It later says the body of Ziyadne's son Hamza was found alongside him.
January 19 - A ceasefire takes effect. Under the six-week ceasefire, fighters agree to hand over 33 Israeli hostages - 25 of them alive and eight deceased - including women, children, men over 50 and ill and wounded. Israel frees almost 2,000 Palestinians from its jails. The agreement envisions a subsequent phase when the two sides are to negotiate the exchange of remaining hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, but this never comes to pass after Israel calls off the ceasefire in March.
On the first day of the ceasefire, Hamas releases the first three Israeli women and Israel releases 90 Palestinian prisoners.
January 25 - Hamas releases four Israeli female soldiers under the ceasefire agreement.
January 30 - Hamas frees two more Israeli women and an 80-year-old hostage, along with five Thais who are not officially included in the ceasefire agreement.
Israel releases 110 Palestinian prisoners in return, after delaying the process in anger at the swarming crowds at one of the hostage handover points.
February 1 - Hamas hands over Israeli-American Keith Siegel and Israeli-French Ofer Calderon. The group also frees Yarden Bibas, whose wife Shiri and children Ariel and Kfir were seized separately from their Kibbutz home.
February 8 - Hamas releases three Israeli hostages.
February 15 - Hamas releases three hostages, including an Israeli American.
February 20 - Hamas releases the bodies of Ariel and Kfir Bibas, who were aged 4 years and 9 months when kidnapped, along with an unidentified body that Israel said was not that of their mother Shiri Bibas.
The group also hands over the body of Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when abducted.
February 22 - Hamas releases a fourth body, later identified by Israel as Shiri Bibas, and frees six hostages, two of whom were captured before October 2023.
Israel delays the release of more than 600 prisoners and detainees, citing violations of the ceasefire deal by Hamas.
February 26 - After days of impasse, Egyptian mediators secure the handover of the bodies of the final four hostages in the deal's first phase. Israel frees about 600 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
March - Israel abandons the ceasefire and resumes attacks in the enclave.
May 12 - Hamas hands over Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, the last surviving U.S. hostage held in Gaza.
July - Another round of ceasefire and hostage release talks ends in deadlock.
October - A fresh round of talks begins in Egypt, aimed at ending the war and releasing all the hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and detainees jailed in Israel.
(Writing by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem and Nayera Abdallah in DubaiEditing by William Maclean, Frances Kerry and Saad Sayeed)
