Hamas frees first 5 of 6 Israeli hostages to be released in the latest exchange
Hamas freed the first five of six Israeli hostages due to be released Saturday even as heightened tension between the adversaries clouded the future of the fragile ceasefire deal.
The five included three Israeli men seized while attending the Nova music festival and another abducted while visiting his family in southern Israel when militants stormed across the border in the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that triggered Israel's nearly 16-month campaign in Gaza.
The fifth man released and the sixth due to be freed later Saturday have been held by Hamas for around a decade since they each entered Gaza on their own.
They were handed over to the Red Cross in two separate ceremonies in Gaza, brought out on stages by masked, armed Hamas fighters in front of hundreds of Palestinians. In the central town of Nuseirat, Omer Wenkert, Omer Shem Tov, and Eliya Cohen were posed alongside fighters – and a beaming Shem Tov even kissed the militant next to him on the head and blew kisses to the crowd. They were then put in Red Cross vehicles and taken to Israeli troops.
Watching the release, Cohen's family and friends in Israel chanted 'Eliya! Eliya! Eliya!' and cheered when they saw him for the first time. Shem Tov's grandmother ululated in joy, shrieking, 'Omer, my joy! My life!' as she saw him.
The latest releases, to be followed by the freeing of hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, are going 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 militants.
The remains that Hamas transferred with her sons' bodies on Thursday were later determined to be those of an unidentified Palestinian woman. In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed revenge for 'a cruel and malicious violation,' while Hamas suggested it had been a mistake.
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.
'For 16 months we sought certainty, and now that it's here, it brings no comfort, though we hope it marks the beginning of closure,' the family said.
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.
Cohen, Shem Tov and Wenkert, all in their 20s, were abducted by Hamas fighters at the Nova music festival. During their release, they were brought out wearing fake army uniforms, though they were not soldiers when they were kidnapped.
Earlier Saturday, two other hostages — Tal Shoham, 40, and Avera Mengistu, 38 — were freed in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Arriving back in Israel, both were taken to medical centers for examination.
'This is an unforgettable moment, where all emotions are rapidly mixing together. Our Tal is with us,' Shoham's family said in a statement, calling for a deal to free all those still captive. 'There is a window of opportunity; we must not miss it.'
Shoham, who also holds Austrian citizenship, was visiting his wife's family in Kibbutz Be'eri when Hamas militants stormed into the community during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks. Shoham's wife, two young children, and three other relatives who were abducted with him were freed in a November 2023 exchange.
Mengistu, an Ethiopian-Israeli, had been held in Gaza since entering on his own in 2014. Watching the handover on Israeli media, Mengistu's family broke out into a Hebrew song, 'Here is the Light,' as they saw him for the first time in more than a decade.
The sixth hostage due to be freed later, 36-year-old Hisham al-Sayed, crossed into Gaza in 2015 and has been held since.
More than 600 Palestinians jailed in Israel will be freed in exchange, the Palestinian prisoners media office said Friday. They include 50 serving life sentences, 60 with long sentences, 47 who were released under a previous hostage-for-prisoner exchange and 445 Palestinians who were seized by Israeli troops in Gaza since the war began.
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.
Hamas has said it won't release the remaining captives without a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal. Netanyahu, with the full backing of the Trump administration, says he's committed to destroying Hamas' military and governing capacities and returning all the hostages, goals widely seen as mutually exclusive.
Israel's military offensive killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
The offensive destroyed vast areas of Gaza, reducing entire neighborhoods to rubble. At its height, the war displaced 90% of Gaza's population. Many have returned to their homes to find nothing left and no way of rebuilding.
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Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Jahjouh from Rafah. AP correspondents Abdel-Kareem Hana in Nuseirat, Gaza Strip, and Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.
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