CNN
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Hamas released six hostages from Gaza on Saturday, handing over in two public ceremonies and one private transfer the final living captives in this phase whom the warring sides agreed would be freed when a ceasefire began last month. Israel was due to release 620 Palestinian detainees in return, but has delayed the exchange citing further security reviews.
A decision will be made regarding the continuation of the process after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convenes a security consultation on Saturday evening, an Israeli official told CNN. Hamas’ media office has accused Israel of violating the truce with the delay, casting some uncertainty over the precarious ceasefire deal.
The release of the six hostages earlier on Saturday came just hours after Hamas returned the remains of Shiri Bibas – the Israeli mother whose young family became a symbol for the plight of hostages being held in Gaza. Hamas delivered a body on Thursday that they said at first was Bibas. But forensic testing by Israeli authorities confirmed that it was not hers, triggering a wave of outrage and condemnation in Israel.
The first two hostages to be released on Saturday, Tal Shoham, 40, and Avera Mengistu, 38, were turned over to Red Cross officials in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Shoham was kidnapped from kibbutz Be’eri, along with his two children, wife, and mother-in-law, all of whom were released in November 2023. Mengistu, an Israeli from Ashkelon, crossed into Gaza in 2014.
Later on, thousands, including Hamas fighters, gathered at a separate location, in Nuseirat, central Gaza, where three of the hostages – Eliya Cohen, 27, Omer Shem Tov, 22, and Omer Wenkert, 23 – were handed over in another heavily choreographed ceremony. A number of children appeared on the stage wearing shirts with photographs of Hamas leaders who had been killed.
The three men were kidnapped at the Nova music festival near the border with Gaza. They appeared thin but in better condition than some of the previous freed hostages, whose appearance sparked alarm in Israel. Shem Tov seemed to engage with some of the Hamas fighters on stage and blew a kiss toward the crowd.
A sixth hostage, Hisham al-Sayed, 37, an Arab-Israeli from a Bedouin community in southern Israel who walked into Gaza in 2015, was turned over to the Red Cross in Gaza City, according to an Israeli security source and a Hamas source.
Al-Sayed and Mengistu both reportedly have serious mental health conditions. They were captured by Hamas about a decade ago, while the four others were taken during the militant group’s October 7, 2023, attack.
The Israeli military said the hostages had crossed into Israel and would receive medical assessments before being reunited with their families.
Crowds gathered in Tel Aviv’s “Hostage Square” to witness their releases on screen, with some waving to the sky as a helicopter carrying Mengistu passed overhead.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners Society, 620 prisoners are expected to be released from Israeli detention in return – a slightly higher figure than previously reported and the largest number of Palestinian prisoners to be exchanged since the ceasefire deal began.
Among them are 151 prisoners serving life sentences and long sentences.
There are also 445 prisoners who have been held without charge since October 2023, in addition to 23 children and one woman, according to the society. All are expected to be taken to Gaza.
The rest will go to the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem or will go into exile in third countries.
According to prison authorities, a senior Israeli prisons official, Lt. Col. Kobi Yaakovi, ordered the Palestinian prisoners to wear clothes that included the inscription: “I have pursued mine enemies and overtaken them; neither did I turn back till they were consumed.”
The Israeli captives released on Saturday are the last living hostages whom Israel and Hamas agreed to exchange when indirect talks in Qatar last month culminated in a ceasefire agreement.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Saturday that the “completion of a hostage deal is a humanitarian, moral, and Jewish imperative.”
He added that today’s freed hostages “return from the depths of hell to begin the process of healing and recovery alongside their loving families, who fought with all their strength for them.”
Just before being handed over to the Red Cross in Rafah, Shoham and Mengistu were paraded on stage, flanked by armed and masked militants. They were handed documents, and Shoham was forced to address the crowd.
In contrast, al-Sayed, received a quieter handover, which one leading Bedouin figure in Israel said showed Hamas’ respect of “the Palestinians in the occupied territories.”
Many from this often marginalized community – one of several ethnic minority groups in Israel – identify distinctly as Bedouin Israelis, while others see themselves as Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Saturday’s hostage release was a “moving and joyful moment” but was accompanied by “deep pain over the fate of Shiri Bibas and her sons.”
“We cannot pass over this terrible and horrific act as an agenda item,” he said.
On Friday evening, Shiri Bibas’ remains arrived in Tel Aviv following an outcry over Hamas having released the wrong body. Bibas’ remains had been expected to be among those of four hostages returned by Hamas on Thursday, alongside her sons, Kfir and Ariel, and another captive, Oded Lifshitz.
However, while forensic tests by Israeli authorities confirmed that the remains included those of the two boys and Lifshitz, the fourth body was not that of Shiri Bibas – and nor did it match that of any other Israeli hostage, prompting demands for the correct remains to be returned.
“Last night, our Shiri was brought home. After the identification process at the Institute for Forensic Medicine, we received the news this morning that we had feared: our Shiri was murdered in captivity,” said a statement from her family provided by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum on Saturday.
Hamas, which says Shiri and the two boys were killed in an Israeli airstrike in 2023, said that her body may have earlier been mixed up with the body of another person killed in the airstrike, and vowed to investigate.
After Saturday’s releases, Hamas and its allies will continue to hold 63 Israeli hostages in Gaza. At least 32 of those are believed to be dead, according to the Israeli government – one of whom, the soldier Hadar Goldin, has been held since 2014.
If another four hostage bodies are released next week as planned, the handover process for the first phase of the deal will be complete.
Israel and Hamas are holding indirect negotiations to extend the ceasefire. Those talks began more than two weeks late.
Hamas on Saturday signaled it is prepared to hand over all remaining Israeli hostages, alive and dead, in one group in exchange for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza under the next phase of the ceasefire.
This story has been updated with additional information.
CNN’s Lauren Izso, Mohammed Tawfeeq, Tim Lister, Lucas Lilieholm, Brad Lendon, Ibrahim Dahman and Khader Al-Za’anoun of Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, contributed reporting.
