Deal 'underway' to release Imad Amhaz, reports say

A Princeton University graduate student who was kidnapped in Iraq in 2023 has been freed in a prisoners swap deal that might include Lebanese prisoners detained in Israel, local media reports said.

Israel would likely release several Iraqi prisoners held by Israel and Lebanese prisoners including Imad Amhaz, OTV and al-Jadeed said Thursday.

According to the reports, the deal may include Amhaz, who was kidnapped by an Israeli commando operation in Batroun in late 2024, along with 5 other detainees, including Iranians.

Tsurkov, who holds Israeli and Russian citizenship, spent more than 900 days in custody after disappearing in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, as she was pursuing a doctorate focused on sectarianism in the region.

She was turned over to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad after having been "tortured for many months," President Donald Trump said in a social media post in which he identified her captors as from Kataib Hezbollah, part of a coalition of Iranian-backed militias that are officially part of Iraq's armed forces but in practice often act on their own.

Two Iraqi militia officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Tsurkov's release came about as a result of negotiations.

The officials said one of the conditions for her release had been the withdrawal of U.S. forces currently stationed in Iraq — which had been agreed upon between Washington and Baghdad last year — and that the U.S. and Israel would not launch strikes on Iraq.

There were reports last spring that negotiators were close to a deal, with talks having centered on an exchange.