Nearly a hundred Palestinian prisoners released by Israel arrived Thursday afternoon in two buses to the West Bank town of Ramallah, where their families, medical teams and hundreds of people are waiting to welcome them with Palestinian flags and the Palestinian nationalist movement Fatah.

Hamas-led militants are set to release three male hostages from the Gaza Strip on Saturday, in return for the release of dozens of Palestinian prisoners as part of a fragile ceasefire with Israel that has halted more than a year of intense fighting and has so far seen 15 hostages and hundreds of prisoners freed.

The Palestinian militant group Hamas is expected to hand over three Israelis on Saturday, in the latest stage of a gradual exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners under a truce aimed at opening the way to ending the 15-month war in Gaza.