GAZA/JERUSALEM/CAIRO: Palestinian militant group Hamas handed over three Israeli hostages on Saturday, whose emaciated appearance shocked Israelis following their release on live TV, in the latest stage of a ceasefire deal aimed at ending the 15-month war in Gaza.
Ohad Ben Ami and Eli Sharabi, both taken hostage from Kibbutz Be’eri during the cross-border Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, and Or Levy, abducted that day from the Nova music festival, were led onto a Hamas podium by gunmen.
The three men all appeared thin, weak and pale, and in worse condition than the 18 hostages who had previously been freed under the truce agreed last month.
“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 them answering questions posed to them by a masked man as militants armed with automatic rifles stood on each side.
Dozens of armed Hamas fighters were deployed at the site in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, as the men were handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross which was to transport them to Israeli forces in Gaza.
In exchange, Israel will release 183 Palestinian prisoners, some convicted of involvement in attacks that killed dozens of people and including 18 serving life sentences and 111 detained in Gaza during the war, according to Hamas.
For families of the Israeli hostages who have been held incommunicado in Gaza for more than a year, the wait has been a rollercoaster of dread and hope as the moments of reunion drew near.
Some face a painful return. Sharabi’s two teenage daughters and his British-born wife were slain in the Hamas attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, where one in 10 residents was killed.
TRUMP SURPRISE
The exchange is the latest in a series of swaps that have so far returned 13 Israeli and five Thai hostages abducted during the Hamas attack and released 583 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
Despite hiccups, a 42-day ceasefire and hostage-for-prisoner exchange worked out with U.S. backing and mediation by Egypt and Qatar has held up since it took effect nearly three weeks ago.
But fears the deal might collapse before all the hostages are free have grown since U.S. 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 the proposal, which critics said would amount to ethnic cleansing.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, welcomed Trump’s intervention and his defence minister ordered the military to make plans to allow Palestinians who wished 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 an initial phase 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 a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza in preparation for a final end to the war.
Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
In response, Israel launched an air and ground war in Gaza that has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, and devastated much of the narrow enclave.
