Newly released hostage Avera Mengistu (2nd-R) flanked by security forces disembarks a military helicopter on the heliport of the Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov) in Tel Aviv. Photo / AFP
Newly released hostage Avera Mengistu (2nd-R) flanked by security forces disembarks a military helicopter on the heliport of the Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov) in Tel Aviv. Photo / AFP
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delayed freeing Palestinian prisoners until Hamas ends “humiliating ceremonies” for hostages.
Hamas called the delay a “blatant violation” of the truce, expecting over 600 prisoners' release.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Hamas would be “destroyed” if all hostages weren’t released.
Hamas on Sunday accused Israel of placing the Gaza truce in grave danger after the government delayed release of Palestinian prisoners due to be freed after militants released six hostages a day earlier.
“What the enemy government is doing by postponing the release of our prisonersaccording to the agreement is behaving like thugs and exposes the entire agreement to grave danger,” senior Hamas official Bassem Naim told AFP, calling on the mediators, “especially the United States” to pressure Israel “to implement the agreement as it is and immediately release this batch of prisoners.”
Since the ceasefire’s first phase began on January 19, Hamas has released 25 living Israeli hostages in ceremonies before crowds at various locations in Gaza.
Israel had been expected to free more than 600 Palestinian prisoners.
Dana Shem Tov, centre, the sister of Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov reacts as she watches with others his televised release by Hamas militants at the family home in Tel Aviv on February 22. Photo / AFP
“In light of Hamas' repeated violations – including the disgraceful ceremonies that dishonour our hostages and the cynical use of hostages for propaganda – it has been decided to delay the release of terrorists,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
The delay will last “until the release of the next hostages is ensured, without the humiliating ceremonies”, it added.
From Washington, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Hamas would be “destroyed” if it did not release all remaining hostages.
Israel vowed to destroy Hamas after its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that triggered more than 15 months of war. The attack resulted in the deaths of more than 1200 people, and Israel’s retaliation killed more than 48,000, according to figures from both sides.
Families of Palestinian prisoners had waited with uncertainty into the night on Saturday, hoping for their release.
In the southern city of Khan Yunis, Umm Diya al-Agha, 80, said she had received word her son was among those scheduled to be freed, after 33 years in prison.
“If my heart were made of iron, it would have melted and shattered. Every day, I have been waiting for this moment,” she said.
‘Coming back home’
The Palestinian Prisoners' Club advocacy group had said Israel would free 620 inmates on Saturday, most of them Gazans taken into custody during the war.
Before Netanyahu’s announcement, Hamas spokesperson Abdel Latif al-Qanou said Israel’s “failure to comply with the release... at the agreed-upon time constitutes a blatant violation of the agreement”.
A woman and man stand near placards bearing pictures of Israeli held captive by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip since the October 7 attacks, outside the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, now informally called the "Hostages Square", on February 19. Photo / AFP
Qanou called on the truce mediators to pressure Israel to “implement its provisions without delay or obstruction”.
The six Israelis released Saturday were the last group of living hostages set to be freed under the truce’s first phase.
Negotiations for a second phase, which is meant to lead to a permanent end to the war, have yet to begin.
At a ceremony in Nuseirat, central Gaza, hostages Eliya Cohen, 27, Omer Shem Tov, 22, and Israeli-Argentine Omer Wenkert, 23, waved from a stage, flanked by masked Hamas militants, before being transferred to the Red Cross.
“I saw the look on his face. He’s calm, he knows he’s coming back home... He’s a real hero,” said Wenkert’s friend Rory Grosz.
Displaced Palestinians walk through a muddy road amid the destruction in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on February 6. Photo / AFP
Under the cold winter rain in Rafah, southern Gaza, militants handed over Tal Shoham, 40, and Avera Mengistu, 38, who both appeared dazed.
A sixth hostage, Hisham al-Sayed, 37, was later released in private and taken back to Israeli territory, the military said.
Sayed, a Bedouin Muslim, and Mengistu, an Ethiopian Jew, had been held in Gaza for about a decade after they entered the territory individually.
Sayed’s family called it “a long-awaited moment”.
Hamas said they freed Sayed in private to “honour and respect” Palestinians inside Israel.
‘Mix-up’
On Thursday, the first transfer of dead hostages under the truce sparked anger in Israel after analysis concluded that captive Shiri Bibas’ remains were not among the four bodies returned.
United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk condemned the “parading of bodies” during a ceremony in which coffins, with pictures of the dead attached, were displayed on a slogan-bedecked stage.
Posters bearing the portraits of Israeli hostages Shiri Bibas (C) and her two children Ariel (L) and Kfir (R), held in the Gaza Strip since the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas militants. Photo / AFP
Bibas and her two young sons became symbols of Israel’s hostage ordeal.
Hamas admitted a possible “mix-up of bodies”, and late Friday handed over more human remains, which the Bibas family said had been identified as the mother’s.
Hamas has long maintained that Shiri and her sons were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Forensics expert Chen Kugel, however, said an autopsy conducted on their remains found “no evidence of injuries caused by a bombing”.
Out of 251 people taken hostage during the October 2023 attack, 62 are still held in Gaza including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.
The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1215 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,319 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.
