TEL AVIV: Hamas freed six hostages in the latest exchange Saturday, even as heightened tension between the adversaries clouded the future of the fragile ceasefire deal.
The six included three Israeli men seized from the Nova music festival and another abducted while visiting his family in southern Israel when militants stormed across the border in the October 7, 2023, attacks that triggered Israel’s nearly 16-month campaign in the Gaza Strip.
Two of the hostages had been held by Hamas for around a decade since they each entered Gaza on their own.
Five of the captives were handed over in staged ceremonies that the Red Cross and Israel have condemned in the past brought out by masked, armed Hamas fighters in front of hundreds of Palestinians before being transferred to Red Cross vehicles.
In the central town of Nuseirat, Omer Wenkert, Omer Shem Tov, and Eliya Cohen were posed alongside Hamas fighters on the stage. A beaming Shem Tov even kissed two militants next to him.
The Israeli military said the final hostage, Hisham Al-Sayed, 36, was released later Saturday. The Bedouin Israeli crossed on his own into Gaza in 2015 and had been held since. His family has told Israeli media Al-Sayed was previously diagnosed with schizophrenia.
The latest releases, to be followed by the freeing of hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, went ahead after tensions mounted over a grisly and heart-wrenching dispute triggered this week when Hamas initially handed over the wrong body for Shiri Bibas, an Israeli mother of two young boys abducted by the militants.
On Friday night, the small militant group believed to have been holding Bibas and her sons — the Palestinian Mujahedeen Brigades handed over a second body. Bibas’ family said Israeli forensic authorities had confirmed the remains were hers.
The ceasefire deal has paused the war but is nearing the end of its first phase. Negotiations over a second phase, in which Hamas would release dozens more hostages in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal, are likely to be even more difficult.
The six hostages being freed Saturday are the last living ones to be released under the first phase.
Israel is to release 620 imprisoned Palestinians. They include 151 who were serving life or other sentences, around 100 of whom will be deported to other countries, according to the Palestinian prisoners media office. Hamas has said it will also release four more bodies next week, completing the first phase of the ceasefire. If that plan is carried out, Hamas would retain about 60 hostages, about half of whom are believed to be alive.