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Israel freed hundreds of Palestinian prisoners on Thursday, shortly after saying Palestinian militant group Hamas handed over coffins believed to contain the bodies of four hostages.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel had received the coffins of “four fallen hostages”, and a process to formally identify them had started. A kibbutz later confirmed two of them were members of its community.In Gaza and the occupied West Bank, AFP journalists saw hundreds of Palestinian prisoners freed by Israel arrive on buses accompanied by Red Cross vehicles.More than 600 had been due to be released in the latest exchange, and Egypt’s state-linked Al-Qahera News said 97 of them arrived on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip.They were supposed to have been freed at the weekend, but Israel stopped the process following outrage over elaborate ceremonies Hamas had been holding to hand over hostages seized in its unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack.The row had threatened the first phase of a fragile Gaza ceasefire deal that went into effect on January 19 and ends on Saturday.Hamas said on Thursday that Israel now had no choice but to start negotiations on a second phase.”We have cut off the path before the enemy’s false justifications, and it has no choice but to start negotiations for the second phase,” the group said on Telegram.Several of the Palestinians freed to Ramallah were hoisted in the air on arrival, some of them conducting interviews from the shoulders of friends or relatives.A group of women broke into tears as they gathered around one released prisoner, and a child held aloft made peace signs with both hands.Earlier, Hamas said the return of the four Israeli bodies would take place in private “to prevent the occupation from finding any pretext for delay or obstruction”.Hours after the coffins were handed over, the kibbutz Nir Oz said two members of its community — Itzik Elgarat and Ohad Yahalomi — were among the four bodies returned.Israeli media identified the other two as Tsachi Idan and Shlomo Mansour.- ‘Negotiations will begin’ -The ceasefire has largely halted the war sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, and seen 25 hostages released alive in exchange for more than 1,100 prisoners.There have been sporadic incidents of violence, however.The Israeli military said it carried out air strikes on several launch sites inside Gaza after a projectile was fired from there on Wednesday, though the munition fell short inside the Palestinian territory.In Washington, US President Donald Trump’s top envoy to the Middle East said Israeli representatives were en route to talks on the next phase of the ceasefire.”We’re making a lot of progress. Israel is sending a team right now as we speak,” Steve Witkoff told an event for the American Jewish Committee.”It’s either going to be in Doha or in Cairo, where negotiations will begin again with the Egyptians and the Qataris.”- Minute of silence -On Wednesday, thousands gathered in Israel for the funeral of Shiri Bibas and her sons, who were killed in captivity in Gaza and had become symbols of the country’s hostage ordeal.The Israeli parliament held a minute of silence to mourn their deaths, as well as those of other victims of Hamas’s October 7 attack.”Yesterday, the funeral of Oded Lifshitz took place; today, the funeral of Shiri, Kfir and Ariel Bibas is taking place. We remember all the victims of October 7. We remember, and we will not forget,” said speaker Amir Ohana.Israel vowed to destroy Hamas after the attack, the deadliest in the country’s history and has made bringing back all the hostages taken that day a central war aim.The attack resulted in the deaths of more than 1,215 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.Israel’s retaliation in Gaza has killed more than 48,348 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures that the United Nations considers credible.At the Bibas family funeral on Wednesday, father Yarden Bibas, who was abducted separately on October 7 and released alive in a previous exchange, apologised to his late wife and sons.”Shiri, I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you all,” he said in his eulogy, his voice cracking.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday accused North Korea of being behind the theft of $1.5 billion worth of digital assets last week, the largest crypto heist in history.Dubai-based cryptocurrency exchange Bybit reported last week that it had been robbed of 400,000 in cryptocurrency Ethereum.According to the company, attackers exploited security protocols during a transaction, enabling them to transfer the assets to an unidentified address.On Wednesday, the US government pointed the finger at Pyongyang.”(North Korea) was responsible for the theft of approximately $1.5 billion USD in virtual assets from cryptocurrency exchange, Bybit,” the FBI said in a public service announcement.The bureau said a group called TraderTraitor, also known as the Lazarus Group, was behind the theft. It said they were “proceeding rapidly and have converted some of the stolen assets to Bitcoin and other virtual assets dispersed across thousands of addresses on multiple blockchains”.”It is expected these assets will be further laundered and eventually converted to fiat currency,” the FBI added.Lazarus Group gained notoriety a decade ago when it was accused of hacking into Sony Pictures as revenge for “The Interview,” a film that mocked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.It was also allegedly behind the 2022 $620 million heist of Ethereum and USD Coin from the Ronin Network in 2022, previously the biggest crypto theft in history.And in December, the United States and Japan blamed it for the theft of cryptocurrency worth over $300 million from the Japan-based exchange DMM Bitcoin.North Korea’s cyber-warfare program dates back to at least the mid-1990s, and the country has been dubbed “the world’s most prolific cyber-thief” by a cybersecurity firm.Pyongyang’s program has grown to a 6,000-strong cyber-warfare unit known as Bureau 121 that operates from several countries, according to a 2020 US military report.A United Nations panel on North Korea’s evasion of sanctions last year estimated the nation has stolen more than $3 billion in cryptocurrency since 2017.Much of the hacking activity is reportedly directed by Pyongyang’s Reconnaissance General Bureau, its primary foreign intelligence agency.Money stolen helps to fund the country’s nuclear weapons program, the panel said.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday accused North Korea of being behind the theft of $1.5 billion worth of digital assets last week, the largest crypto heist in history.Dubai-based cryptocurrency exchange Bybit reported last week that it had been robbed of 400,000 in cryptocurrency Ethereum.According to the company, attackers exploited security protocols during …

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As a fixture of India’s burgeoning craft beer scene, Varsha Bhat is a rarity twice over: first as a woman who brews alcohol, and second as a woman who drinks it.Bhat is staking a claim to a male-dominated industry in a country where social mores compel most women to stay teetotal. The 38-year-old had for years …

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