On Saturday, Febraury 22, 2025, Hamas released six hostages from Gaza, the last living Israeli captives slated for release under the first phase of a fragile ceasefire agreement that began last month.
But Israel had yet to freed the more than 600 Palestinian prisoners and detainees it had agreed to release in exchange after the Israeli hostages were handed over. However, the Israeli Prime Minsiter’s office did not immediately repond to a request for comment on the reason for the delay.
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Among the freed hostages are three Israeli men who were captured from the Nova music festival and another taken while visiting family in southern Israel during the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the 16-month war in Gaza. The two others were held for a decade after entering Gaza on their own.
During the release, a dozen militants kept guard in a crowd that had come to see the handover, while masked Hamas men armed with automatic guns stood on each side of the three prisoners, who appeared skinny and pale as they waved from the stage.
Tal Shoham, 40, and Avera Mengistu, 39, were earlier released in Rafah in southern Gaza.
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The Hamas-directed releases, which have featured public ceremonies in which detainees are brought on stage and some are forced to speak, have sparked widespread criticism, including from the United Nations, which condemned the “parading of hostages”.
Hamas denied the criticism on Saturday, describing the events as a solemn show of Palestinian unity. It later handed over a sixth hostage, Hisham Al-Sayed, a 36-year-old Arab citizen of Israel, to the Red Cross in Gaza City with no public ceremony.
Hamas responded to the criticism on Saturday, calling the activities as a solemn demonstration of Palestinian solidarity. It later releaed a sixth captive, Hisham Al-Sayed, a 36-year-old Arab Israeli citizen, to the Red Cross in Gaza City without any public ceremony.
Hamas has captured Al-Sayed and Mengistu since they entered Gaza on their own almost a decade ago. Shoham, his wife, and two children were taken from Kibbutz Be’eri before being released during a temporary truce in November 2023.
Sixty-three more detainees, less than half of whom are thought to be alive, remain in Gaza and are set to be released under a three-phase truce mediated by Qatar and Egypt.
