Four out of the 33 hostages set to be freed during the first phase of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas remain in captivity in Gaza, with it being widely believed that they are all dead.

The four are Ohad Yahalomi; Tsahi Idan; Itzik Elgarat; and Shlomo Mantzur, 85. All four were kidnapped during the Hamas October 7, 2023, onslaught on southern Israel.

The four are set to be released on Thursday, according to the agreement mediated between Israel and Hamas by Qatar and the US.

According to Hamas’s past statements, the six hostages released on Saturday were the last to be returned under the first phase of the ceasefire deal who are alive, leading to the conclusion that the remaining four are dead.

Israeli authorities announced earlier this month that Mantzur was killed on October 7, 2023, and his body was taken to Gaza.

Yahalomi, 49 at the time of his kidnapping, was taken captive by Hamas terrorists from Kibbutz Nir Oz after he engaged in a gun battle with gunmen in his house and was shot in the leg.

As the door handle to the family’s safe room was not locking properly, Ohad decided to protect his wife and children by sitting outside the door with a handgun.

After he was shot, the gunmen hurried wife Batsheva and their three children out of the house and onto mopeds, along with a foreign worker from the kibbutz.

Ohad told his family that he loved them, and to go with the terrorists.

Batsheva, 10-year-old Yael and the almost two-year-old toddler sat on one moped with a terrorist, while 12-year-old Eitan and the foreign worker sat on the other moped with another gunman.

As the terrorists headed toward Gaza, they saw two IDF tanks appear up ahead and the two mopeds veered away from one another. Batsheva lost track of Eitan on the other moped.

At some point, Batsheva and her two daughters were able to run, in their pajamas and flip-flops, for more than three hours. Batsheva eventually made it back toward the northern end of the kibbutz, which was less damaged than the other section.

“We were sure that Ohad would be there, but he wasn’t,” she said.

Eitan Yahalomi, 12, was released on November 27 as part of a temporary ceasefire deal brokered by Qatar and the United States between Hamas and Israel.

Idan, 49 at the time of his kidnapping, was taken captive by Hamas terrorists from his home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, after his oldest daughter, Maayan, 18, was shot and killed through the safe room door.

The family of five had run into their safe room early in the morning of October 7, as sirens sounded and an “endless round of rockets” kept falling, said Gali Idan, Tsahi’s wife, in a Channel 13 interview.

The family began hearing terrorists in their house, and Tsahi held the safe room door shut, with help from Maayan.

The terrorists shouted, “Open the door” in English, and then a shot rang out, and Gali realized that Maayan had been shot and killed, falling into Tsahi’s arms.

In an emotional interview with newscaster Lucy Aharish on Channel 13, Gali and her younger daughter, Yael, recounted the traumatic events of that day.

At the time, Gali did not realize that the terrorists were filming the entire attack on their family.

When Maayan was shot, Tsahi let the door fall open, and he was broken, unable to function, Gali said.

Her two younger children were screaming and crying and somehow, she held it together.

“I was on automatic,” Gali told Aharish. “I had to protect my other two children and Tsahi was broken.”

In the Hamas video, the two younger children ask if the terrorists are killing them, and throughout, said Gali, “Tsahi doesn’t say a word.”

“He’s very cool, he’s our support column, but this wasn’t him, it was a shadow of his usual self,” she said.

The terrorists told the family to leave the room. At a later point, they took Tsahi. His younger daughter, Yael, asked the terrorists not to take him and kill him.

“They turned around and said, ‘He’ll be back, he’ll be back,’” said Gali. “They promised Yael that he would return.”

Elgarat, 69 at the time of his kidnapping, was in his Kibbutz Nir Oz home on the morning of October 7 when Hamas terrorists attacked his house, shooting him through his safe room door, injuring him, and taking him captive.

“I spoke to him at 10:30 in the morning,” said his brother Danny Elgarat, a former Ashdod police commander. “He was hysterical and hurt in the hand.”

Itzik had gone to lock the safe room door when the terrorists shot at the door. Danny, his brother, was on the phone with him at the time and could hear yelling in the background.

Itzik said, “Danny, this is the end, this is the end.”

At 12:10, Danny Elgarat saw that his brother’s phone was located in Gaza.

Danny went down to Nir Oz days later, where he described smelling the burning plastic throughout the kibbutz and seeing the ruins of his brother’s home, which had been vandalized and torn apart.

Itzik Elgarat’s nephew, Ben Danzig, whose father Alex Danzig was also taken captive from Nir Oz, described Itzik as a good man who likes to work with his hands.

Itzik Elgarat has citizenship from Denmark and two children who live there.

Mantzur was killed and taken captive by Hamas terrorists who broke into his Kibbutz Kissufim home on October 7, the IDF announced earlier this month. He was 85.

At least eight Kissufim residents and six Thai laborers were also murdered on October 7, and around four people were abducted and taken to Gaza.

Mazal, Mantzur’s wife of 60 years, was miraculously able to escape.

Mantzur was born in Iraq, and lived in Kissufim for most of his adult life, with Mazal.

He managed the kibbutz chicken coop for many years.

Mantzur was known as a modest man with a big heart and golden hands, who loved making things for his grandchildren.

He was beloved by his family and Kissufim community, a small, quiet kibbutz.