Hamas Releases Six Hostages After Handing Over Mother’s Body
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
GAZA CITY/JERUSALEM (Worthy News) – Hamas released six Israeli hostages on Saturday, just hours after it handed over the body of hostage Shiri Bibas, a mother whose two children were killed.
However, Israel delayed the handover of more than 600 Palestinians it was due to free from its prisons in exchange amid mounting anger over the way the group transferred the bodies of dead hostages.
Hamas reportedly handed over the body of hostage Shiri Bibas to the Red Cross late Friday. The organization has transferred the remains to Israeli authorities, according to Israeli media citing a senior official.
[Israel Defense Forces] IDF representatives are in contact with the family,” the military said.
On Thursday, Hamas released four bodies. One was supposed to be that of Shiri Bibas, but forensic examination revealed that it was a Palestinian woman.
The bodies were handed over of her young children Kfir and Ariel, who were aged nine months and four years when Hamas kidnapped them during their October 7, 2023 attack in Israel. Hamas claimed that there “may have been a mix-up or misidentification of the bodies due to the bombings by the Israeli occupation.”
The hostages released by Hamas on Saturday included an Ethiopian-born Israeli and a Bedouin man, both with a history of mental illness, who had both been held captive for a decade after they wandered into Gaza.
WIRE FENCE
Avera Mengistu, aged 39, crossed a barbed wire fence on the Gaza beach in September 2014. “Our family has endured 10 years and five months of unimaginable suffering. During this time, there have been continuous efforts to secure his return, with prayers and pleas, some silent, that remained unanswered until today,” Mengistu’s family said in a statement.
Hisham al-Sayed, 36, a Bedouin from the Negev desert, walked into Gaza from the east in April 2015 and was detained by Hamas.
“Why were they holding someone like that who did nothing wrong? He’s a man of peace, a man who wanted to reach Gaza. He loves Gaza; he did not go there as an aggressor,” Sayed’s father, Shaaban, told Israeli public radio earlier in the week. “This was more painful for us than everything else.”
Five of the hostages released on Saturday were handed over in ceremonies that Hamas has used for propaganda and that have been condemned as “cruel and disrespectful” by the Red Cross.
In one ceremony, Omer Wenkert, Omer Shem Tov, and Eliya Cohen were posed alongside armed and masked Hamas fighters in front of a large propaganda poster, witnesses said.
Shem Tov kissed two Hamas fighters on the head and blew kisses to the crowd assembled to watch the release, but it was unclear whether the hostage had been under duress to do so.
The release of six Israelis yesterday brought to 25 the number of hostages freed by Hamas in the first phase of the ceasefire.
FOUR BODIES
They also handed over four bodies of hostages who had been killed during the conflict and are due to hand over four more in the coming week, officials said.
However, under the terms of a ceasefire deal, Israel was supposed to free 602 Palestinians from its prisons, of which 445 had been captured in the Gaza Strip since the outbreak of the war.
They were due to be released inside Gaza. Of the remaining 157 Palestinians freed, some were due to be deported, while others were transferred to the West Bank. Of them, 50 had been serving life sentences.
Yet Israel wasn’t in a hurry to release them after condemning Hamas’ treatment of hostages, after this week’s display of the bodies of the four dead hostages, including children.
The head of the Israeli prison service, Kobi Yakobi, sought to use the exchanges to make political points.
Palestinians freed in an exchange the previous week had been made to wear T-shirts with an Arabic inscription: “We will not forget, and we will not forgive.”
On Saturday, Yakobi reportedly prepared sweatshirts for the Palestinians being handed over that said: “I will pursue my enemies and overtake them, and I will not return until they are destroyed,” as well as bracelets inscribed: “The eternal people do not forget. I will pursue my enemies and overtake them.”
VIOLENT CRIME
As tensions rose in Gaza, Israeli diplomats outside the country faced new threats, including in Sweden, where police announced the arrest of three men near the Israeli embassy in Stockholm on Friday.
They are suspected of preparing “a violent crime,” but according to the police, it was still too early to determine whether the diplomatic mission was the target.
Swedish broadcaster TV4, citing anonymous sources, reported that the men had planned an attack on the embassy.
A police spokesperson declined to comment on the possible motive.
The arrests took place near the diplomatic mission but not on its premises, according to the police.
Swedish police increased security around Israeli and Jewish buildings in the country last year following a shooting near the Israeli embassy.
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