Israel delays Palestinians' release after six Gaza hostages freed

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that freeing Palestinian prisoners under the Gaza ceasefire deal will be delayed until Hamas ends its "humiliating ceremonies" while releasing Israeli hostages.

Since the ceasefire came into effect on January 19, Hamas has released 25 Israeli hostages in well-rehearsed handovers, with masked militants parading the captives on stage and forcing them to wave at Gazans gathered to watch.

In the seventh scheduled prisoner-hostage swap, Hamas released six Israeli captives on Saturday while Israel put off releasing Palestinian prisoners. The Palestinian militant group called the move a "blatant violation" of the truce deal.

Israel had been expected to release more than 600 Palestinian prisoners.

"In light of Hamas' repeated violations -- including the disgraceful ceremonies that dishonour our hostages and the cynical use of hostages for propaganda -- it has been decided to delay the release of terrorists", Netanyahu's office said in a statement Sunday.

The delay will last "until the release of the next hostages is ensured, without the humiliating ceremonies", it added.

From Washington, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that Hamas would be "destroyed" if it did not release all remaining hostages.

Families of the Palestinian prisoners, meanwhile, waited hours on Saturday for their loved ones to be released from Israeli custody, only to be disappointed.

"We wait for them, to hug them, and see them, but Netanyahu is always stalling," said Fatiha Abu Abdullah, a mother in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis.

"God willing, they will be released soon," added Abdullah, whose son has been in an Israeli prison since November.

 'Coming back home' 

The Palestinian Prisoners' Club advocacy group had said Israel would free 620 inmates on Saturday, most of them Gazans taken into custody during the war.

Before Netanyahu's announcement, Hamas spokesperson Abdel Latif al-Qanou said Israel's "failure to comply with the release... at the agreed-upon time constitutes a blatant violation of the agreement".

Qanou called on the truce mediators to pressure Israel to "implement its provisions without delay or obstruction".

The six Israelis released Saturday were the last group of living hostages set to be freed under the truce's first phase.

The deal is due to expire in early March.

Negotiations for a second phase, which is meant to lead to a permanent end to the war triggered by Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, have yet to begin.

At a ceremony in Nuseirat, central Gaza, Eliya Cohen, 27, Omer Shem Tov, 22, and Israeli-Argentine Omer Wenkert, 23, waved from a stage, flanked by masked Hamas militants, before their handover to the Red Cross.

"I saw the look on his face, he's calm, he knows he's coming back home... He's a real hero," said Wenkert's friend Rory Grosz.

Under the cold winter rain in Rafah, southern Gaza, militants handed over Tal Shoham, 40, and Avera Mengistu, 38, who both appeared dazed.

A sixth hostage, Hisham al-Sayed, 37, was later released in private and taken back to Israeli territory, the military said.

Sayed, a Bedouin Muslim, and Mengistu, an Ethiopian Jew, had been held in Gaza for about a decade after they entered the territory individually.

Sayed's family called it "a long-awaited moment".

 'Mix-up' 

On Thursday, the first transfer of dead hostages under the truce sparked anger in Israel after analysis concluded that captive Shiri Bibas's remains were not among the four bodies returned.

Bibas and her two young sons, among the dozens of captives taken during Hamas' October 2023 assault, had become symbols of the ordeal suffered by Israeli hostages.

Hamas admitted a possible "mix-up of bodies", and late Friday handed over more human remains, which the Bibas family said had been identified as Shiri's.

The family said in a statement she "was murdered in captivity and has now returned home... to rest".

Hamas militants had claimed that Shiri and her sons were killed in an Israeli air strike.

Forensics expert Chen Kugel, however, said an autopsy conducted on their remains found "no evidence of injuries caused by a bombing".

Israel's military said that, after an analysis of the remains, Palestinian militants had killed the Bibas boys, Ariel and Kfir, "with their bare hands" in November 2023.

Hamas dismissed this account as "baseless lies".

Out of 251 people taken hostage during the October 2023 attack, 62 are still in Gaza including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.

The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,215 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,319 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.

 Agence France-Presse