Kittiya Thuengsaeng thought her 28-year-old boyfriend was among the almost 40 Thais killed in Hamas's deadly assault on Israel last month.

But on Friday night Thai officials shocked her with news so good it seemed impossible.

"I couldn't believe my eyes," she told AFP, describing the moment she saw a photograph of Wichai Kalapat after he was released from weeks in captivity.

"I had a chat with him in the morning. He was still smiling. He told me he was safe."

An Israeli-owned cargo ship was damaged in a suspected drone attack by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the Indian Ocean, a US defence official said on Saturday.

"We are aware of reports that there was a suspected IRGC-initiated Shahed-136 UAV (that) struck a civilian motor vessel in the Indian Ocean," the official said, confirming the attack on Friday and adding that "the ship incurred minor damage" and there were "no injuries".

Hamas fighters are set to release a new wave of hostages Saturday in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, officials said, offering hope to anguished families after seven weeks of war that have killed thousands of people.

Key mediator Qatar was expected to announce the numbers of prisoners and hostages to be freed later Saturday, the second swap since a four-day ceasefire came into effect on Friday and largely silenced the guns on both sides.

Israeli authorities said they had received a list of the hostages to be freed but did not provide numbers or the precise timing.

Firecrackers lit up the night sky Friday as raucous celebrations -- mixed with defiance -- marked the release of Palestinian women and children from Israeli prisons in exchange for the first wave of hostages freed by Hamas in Gaza.

Crowds across the West Bank cheered and waved Palestinian and Hamas flags, along with kaffiyeh scarves after two white coaches -- escorted by armoured vehicles -- exited the Ofer military camp with the prisoners.

The Israeli foreign ministry on Friday summoned the ambassadors of Spain and Belgium for a "harsh rebuke" over comments by the two countries' leaders about the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

Spain's foreign ministry swiftly riposted by calling in the Israeli ambassador to explain her government's "false and unacceptable" allegations against the Spanish prime minister.

A Palestinian NGO said Friday that 39 prisoners had been released by Israeli authorities under a truce agreement to pause the fighting in Gaza, after 13 hostages from Israel had been handed over.

A total of 28 prisoners were released in the occupied West Bank, an AFP correspondent saw, while the other 11 were brought to annexed east Jerusalem, according to the Palestinian Prisoners' Club advocacy group.

Two white coaches, escorted by armoured vehicles, were seen leaving the Ofer military camp in the early evening.

How will the first group of hostages released by Hamas on Friday recover from the psychological trauma of being held captive since the Palestinian militant group's attack on Israel on October 7?

It is a difficult question to answer, experts say, because the capacity to recover from being held hostage varies enormously and unpredictably from one person to another.

More than three decades after Palestinian Samir El-Barawy and his new Bosnian bride fled to Gaza to escape bloody fighting in Yugoslavia, the couple has been forced out again by war.

The flight back to Bosnia from his home in northern Gaza was filled with peril, and their house was hit by an air strike just days after a Hamas onslaught across southern Israel triggered conflict anew.

"I left everything behind, but I'm alive", the 59-year-old Palestinian told AFP just days after arriving at a refugee centre in Bosnia's Salakovac.

An army of Israeli medics, child protection experts and trauma specialists were bracing Friday to receive 13 women and children released from Gaza after weeks of Hamas captivity.

Nearly seven weeks after more than 240 hostages were snatched from southern Israel by Hamas militants, a first batch of 13 hostages were handed over to Red Cross officials in Gaza, before they were delivered to Israeli custody, officials said.

With children and pets in their arms and their belongings loaded onto donkey carts or car roofs, thousands of displaced Gazans headed home Friday as a four-day Israel-Hamas truce began.

The din of war was replaced by the horns of traffic jams and sirens of ambulances making their way through crowds emerging from hospitals and schools where they had taken refuge.

For nearly seven weeks, Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip had been relentless.

But on Friday morning, no more shots were heard in Khan Yunis, in the south of the Palestinian territory.