Palestinian group Hamas yesterday handed over three Israeli hostages whose gaunt appearance shocked Israelis, and Israel freed dozens of Palestinians in the latest stage of a ceasefire aimed at ending the war in Gaza.
Ohad Ben Ami and Eli Sharabi, who were taken hostage from Kibbutz Be’eri during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and Or Levy, who was abducted that day from the Nova music festival, were led onto a Hamas podium by gunmen.
The three men appeared thin, weak and pale, in worse condition than the 18 other hostages already freed under the truce agreed in January after 15 months of war.
“He looked like a skeleton, it was awful to see,” Ohad Ben Ami’s mother-in-law, Michal Cohen, told Channel 13 News as she watched the Hamas-directed handover ceremony, which included the hostages answering questions posed by a masked man as fighters stood on each side.
In another show of force by Hamas, which has paraded fighters during previous releases, dozens of its fighters deployed in central Gaza as it handed hostages over to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The hostages were then driven in ICRC cars to Israeli forces and into Israel, where they had tearful reunions with family members, and flown to hospitals. “We missed you so much,” the mother of Or Levy, Geula, said as she hugged her son.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the sight of the frail hostages was shocking and would be addressed.
In exchange for the hostages’ release, Israel freed 183 Palestinian prisoners, some convicted of involvement in attacks that killed dozens of people, as well as 111 detained in Gaza during the war.
Israel’s Prison Service confirmed it had released 183 Palestinian prisoners and detainees yesterday during the fifth exchange of the Gaza ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel.
It said in a statement that “183 terrorists were transferred from several prisons across the country”, before they “were released” to the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.
Cheering crowds greeted the buses as they arrived in Gaza, embracing the freed detainees, some of them weeping with joy and tearing prison-issued bracelets off their wrists.
Among those freed in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was Eyad Abu Shkaidem, sentenced to 18 life terms in Israel for masterminding suicide attacks in revenge for Israel’s 2004 assassinations of Hamas leaders.
“Today, I am reborn,” Shkaidem told reporters as the crowd cheered.
The Palestinian Red Crescent medical service said six of the 42 released in the West Bank were in poor health and were taken to hospital. Some prisoners complained of ill-treatment. “The occupation humiliated us for over a year,” said Shkaidem.
Sixteen Israeli and five Thai hostages have been released so far and 583 Palestinian prisoners and detainees have been freed.
The first 42-day phase of the ceasefire, mediated by Washington, Cairo and Doha, has largely held since it took effect on January 19.
Netanyahu sent a delegation for talks in Doha yesterday, Israel’s Channel 12 reported, citing a political source.
Concern the deal might collapse before all remaining 76 hostages are free has grown since President Donald Trump’s surprise call for Palestinians to be moved from Gaza and for the enclave to be handed to the United States and developed into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
Arab states and Palestinian groups have rejected Trump’s proposal, which critics said would amount to ethnic cleansing. Hamas said yesterday its armed display at the hostage handover showed it could not be excluded from post-war Gaza arrangements.
Netanyahu welcomed Trump’s intervention and his defence minister has ordered the military to make plans to allow Palestinians who wish to leave Gaza to do so.
Under the ceasefire deal, 33 Israeli children, women and sick, wounded and older men are to be released during the first stage in exchange for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
Negotiations on a second phase began this week aimed at returning the remaining hostages and agreeing on a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza in preparation for a final end to the war.
Hamas-led gunmen killed some 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 as hostages in the October 7, 2023 attack, according to Israeli tallies.
The offensive Israel launched in response in Gaza has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, and devastated much of the enclave.
The ICRC, which is facilitating ongoing hostage-prisoner exchanges between Israel and Hamas under the Gaza ceasefire deal, called yesterday for future swaps to be held in “private”.
“The ICRC is increasingly concerned about the conditions surrounding release operations. We strongly urge all parties, including the mediators, to take responsibility to ensure that future releases are dignified and private,” the ICRC said in a statement after it completed the fifth exchange.
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