Hamas says it will release Israeli hostages on Monday

Hamas said on Saturday that it will begin releasing Israeli hostages on Monday, following the implementation of the first phase of a ceasefire plan in Gaza that took effect at 12:00 local time on Friday.

The ceasefire followed days of negotiations in Egypt that included a prisoner exchange and plans to reopen border crossings and allow aid into Gaza.

Under the agreement, Israel is expected to halt fighting and partially withdraw from the Gaza Strip, while Hamas will release all remaining hostages in exchange for the release of around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

In an interview with AFP on the day, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan said that the release of Israeli hostages will begin on Monday morning, in accordance with the signed agreement.

According to the Times of Israel, the Israeli Prison Service confirmed on Saturday that it had begun transferring Palestinian prisoners to two prisons in preparation for their release as part of the ceasefire plan.

Two years of Israeli military operations have left much of Gaza in ruins, killed more than 67,000 people, and created severe shortages of food and basic supplies, according to Gaza health authorities。

China's outstanding aggregate social financing -- the total amount of financing to the real economy -- reached 442.12 trillion yuan (about 63.4 trillion U.S. dollars) as of the end of 2025, up 8.3 percent year on year, central bank data showed on Thursday.

The country's aggregate social financing stood at 35.6 trillion yuan (about 5.1 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2025, up by 3.34 trillion yuan (about 479 billion U.S. dollars) from the year 2024, said the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank.

According to the data, the M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, increased 8.5 percent year on year to 340.29 trillion yuan (about 48.8 trillion U.S. dollars) as of the end of December.

In addition, outstanding yuan loans stood at 271.91 trillion yuan (about 39 trillion U.S. dollars) at the end of 2025, up 6.4 percent year on year.