Hamas frees six hostages in Gaza, Israel, who still released the Palestinians

The Hamas freed six hostages from Gaza on Saturday, the last living Israeli prisoners who were published last month in the first phase of a fragile ceasefire agreement.

But hours after the Israeli hostages had been handed over, Israel had released the more than 600 Palestinian prisoners and prisoners who had agreed to let go in an exchange.

The Israeli Prime Minister's office did not immediately answer an application for a statement for the reason for the delay.

Israelis Eliya Cohen, 27, Omer Shem Tov, 22, and Omer Wenkert (23), all from the location of the Nova Music Festival in the Hamas' attack from October 7, 2023, were published in Nuseirat, Central Gaza.

Dozens of militants were in a lot of guard that had gathered to observe the handover as a masked Hamas men who were armed with automatic rifles on each side of the three men who looked thin and pale when they were from had to wave the stage.

The 40 -year -old valley Shoham and Avera Mengistu (39) were previously released in Rafah in southern Gaza.

The Hamas-staged publications, which included public ceremonies, in which prisoners were recorded on stage and some were made to speak, were confronted with critical criticism, including the United Nations that denounced the “parading of hostages”.

Hamas rejected the criticism on Saturday and described the events as a solemn show of the Palestinian unity. Later it handed over a sixth hostage, Hisham al-Sayed, a 36-year-old Arab citizen of Israel, the Red Cross in Gaza without a public ceremony.

Al-Sayed and Mengistu have been captured by Hamas since they entered the Gaza about a decade ago. Shoham was kidnapped by Kibbutz Be'eri together with his wife and two children, who were freed in a short ceasefire in November 2023.

63 more prisoners, which are assumed that they are less than half, remain in Gaza and are to be released under a three-phase custody business, which is conveyed by Qatar and Egypt.

Shem Tov hugged his parents and laughed and cried. “How I dreamed of it,” he said in a video distributed by the Israeli military.

Shoham smiled, waved and gave a thumb up with friends who had gathered in front of the hospital, where he was taken.

“We have been waiting for the valley every day since October 7,” said Yael Avner, 50, one of Shoham's friends. “It is a great relief to only see him there and come home yourself.”

Einav Zangauker, the mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, who is still captured in Gaza, accused the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “carry his feet” and to try to soothe members of his coalition government who have asked for a return to war.

All remaining hostages should be published together, she said.

In a statement, Netanyahu said that the government was “obliged to continue to act in order to bring all of our hostages home”.

In return for the hostages, Israel is expected to publish over 600 Palestinian prisoners and prisoners in his prisons.

These include 445 Gazans, who were rounded off by Israeli armed forces during the war, as well as dozens of convicts who killed longer or lifelong terms for attacks two decades ago, in which dozens of Israelis were killed in the Palestinian uprising.

Captured

The fragile ceasefire in the war between Israel and the militants of Hamas was threatened by the mis -identification of a body released on Thursday than that of Shiri Bibas, which was kidnapped with her two young sons and her husband at Hamas in 2023 with the attack by Hamas.

In the late Friday, Hamas handed over another body that had confirmed her family than her.

“Last night our Shiri was returned home,” said her family in a statement that she said that she was identified by the Israeli Institute of Forensic Medicine.

The Bibas family was an emblem of Israel's trauma that day. Her husband Yarden, confiscated and held separately from his family, was freed on February 1.

The Israeli military said that secret service estimates and forensic analysis of the bodies of the 10 -month -old Kfir Bibas and his four -year -old brother Ariel showed that both had been deliberately killed by their kidnappers, “in cold blood”.

Israel's Army Radio cited the forensic conclusions, said Shiri Bibas was probably killed with her children.

According to Hamas, the Bibas family was killed by an Israeli air raid.

The ceasefire has brought a break in the fights, but the prospects for a final end to the war remain unclear. Hamas has tried to demonstrate that despite severe loss of war in Gaza, it will be under control, while Israeli civil servants say that they are still obliged to destroy the militant group.

Hamas triggered the conflict through its attack on Israeli communities, which according to Israel took 1,200 and 251 hostages.

The Israeli campaign killed at least 48,000 people, say the Palestinian health authorities and reduced a large part of the enclaves to debris, with a few hundreds of thousands in temporary shelters and auxiliary cars.

Both sides have explained that they intend to start the talks in a second stage, which the mediators say, to agree to the return of all remaining hostages and the full retreat of Israeli troops.