A loud cheer swept through the crowd gathered at a Tel Aviv plaza known as Hostage Square, where giant screens livestreamed the long-awaited release of four Israeli hostages on Saturday, the latest to be freed under a Gaza ceasefire deal.

Hamas freed four female Israeli hostages on Saturday, in the second round of a deal between Israel and Hamas which also saw about 200 Palestinian prisoners released.

TEL AVIV/CAIRO (Reuters) -Israel approved a ceasefire deal with Palestinian militant group Hamas on Saturday that involves releasing hostages in the Gaza Strip, and Israeli forces carried out new attacks in the enclave before the agreement's scheduled start on Sunday.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israel and Hamas were expected to swap more hostages for Palestinian prisoners on Saturday, the second such exchange since a ceasefire began in the Gaza Strip last weekend and another test for the deal.

Four female Israeli soldiers held hostage by Hamas have returned to Israel after militants paraded them in front of a crowd of thousands in Gaza City.

TEL AVIV — Hamas militants handed over four captive female Israeli soldiers to the Red Cross at Gaza City on Saturday after parading them in front of a crowd. Israel followed with the release of 200 Palestinian prisoners or detainees as part of the fragile ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

As they were released, hundreds of people cheered in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square where they were watching the drama unfold on a big screen television.

The deal hit its first major complication when Israel said a female civilian hostage named Arbel Yahoud was supposed to be released but wasn't.

The first hostage, soldier Agam Berger, 20, was released after Hamas paraded her in front of a crowd in the heavily destroyed urban Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. Israeli soldier Agam Berger stands with masked Islamic Jihad militants as she is handed over to the Red Cross at the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza City (Mohammed Hajjar/AP)

When the mother of one of the Thai hostages held in the Gaza Strip for over a year caught sight of her son on a Facebook livestream

Hamas-led militants freed eight more hostages from the Gaza Strip and another 110 Palestinian prisoners were released by Israel as part of a ceasefire that began earlier this month. The