Israel has notified the families of the hostages set to be released on Friday, the country's coordinator for hostages and missing persons, Gal Hirsch, said in a statement.
Hirsch said "liaison officers have informed all of those families whose loved ones appear on the list, as well as all of the hostages' families."
The first hostages expected to be released will include members of the same families leaving together, Qatar foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said in a news conference earlier Thursday.
“They will be 13 in number, all women and children, and those hostages who are from the same family will be put together in the same batch,” he said.
A reminder: The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group that sprang up in response to the Hamas attack on Israel, lists 201 Israelis believed to be alive and held hostage in Gaza since October 7.
That list of Israeli hostages includes 39 children aged 18 and under; 44 adult women and 89 adult men aged 19 to 64; and 29 people aged 65 and over. The youngest is Kfir Bibas, who is 10 months old; the oldest are Yafa Adar, Shlomo Mansour and Arye Zalmanovich, who are all 85.
The Israel Defense Forces says the estimated total number of hostages — which includes Americans and other foreign nationals — fluctuates with the latest intelligence, but stood at 236 earlier this week.