Tel Aviv, 25 November 2023 (dpa/MIA) - Israel has reportedly received a list of names of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza who are to be released on Saturday as part of a deal between the two warring sides.

The families of the 13 hostages have been informed, the Israeli news portal ynet and other outlets reported on Friday evening, citing the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israeli officials confirmed that eight of the 13 Israeli hostages to be released on Saturday are children.

Following the start of a ceasefire in Gaza on Friday, a first group of 24 hostages - 13 Israelis and 11 foreigners - who were abducted in the Gaza Strip seven weeks ago were released. Among the Israeli group were four dual nationals who also have German citizenship.

In return, Israel released a larger group of Palestinians detainees from its prisons.

The Israeli hostages who were returned to Israel on Friday have been taken to hospitals near Tel Aviv and reunited with their families.

Four children, three mothers and a grandmother, arrived "in the best and most caring hands" at the Schneider Children's Medical Centre, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted the director of the facility, Efrat Baron Har Lev, as saying.

"Their physical condition is good," the director added.

Five hostages were reportedly taken to the Wolfson Medical Centre on Friday evening.

"There was not a dry eye in the house" when the hostages were reunited with their families, said a director of the Israeli Ministry of Health, Shoshy Goldberg, at a press conference at the centre, according to the US news channel CNN.

In its unprecedented terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, Hamas killed some 1,200 in the border region near Gaza and kidnapped about 240 people to the Gaza Strip.

The attack prompted an intense bombardment of Gaza and an Israeli ground offensive in the north of the territory. Over 14,000 people have been killed in the territory, according to the Hamas-led authorities.

Photo: MIA archive