Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said 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’s first phase began on January 19, Hamas has released 25 living Israeli hostages in ceremonies before crowds at various locations in Gaza.

Armed masked fighters escort the captives onto stages adorned with slogans. The hostages have spoken and waved.

The Red Cross has previously appealed to “all parties” for the swaps to be carried out in a “dignified and private” manner.

In the seventh such transfer, Hamas released six Israeli captives on Saturday but Israel put off releasing Palestinian prisoners in exchange.

The Palestinian militant group called the move a “blatant violation” of the truce deal, the first phase of which is to expire in early March.

Israel had been expected to free 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.

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 Hamas would be “destroyed” if it did not release all remaining hostages.

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Israel vowed to destroy Hamas after its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered more than 15 months of war. The attack resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people, and Israel’s retaliation killed more than 48,000, according to figures from both sides.

Families of Palestinian prisoners had waited with uncertainly into the night on Saturday, hoping for their release.

In the southern city of Khan Yunis, Umm Diya al-Agha, 80, said she had received word her son was among those scheduled to be freed, after 33 years in prison.

“If my heart were made of iron, it would have melted and shattered. Every day, I have been waiting for this moment”, she said.

– ‘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.

Negotiations for a second phase, which is meant to lead to a permanent end to the war, have yet to begin.

At a ceremony in Nuseirat, central Gaza, hostages Eliya Cohen, 27, Omer Shem Tov, 22, and Israeli-Argentine Omer Wenkert, 23, waved from a stage, flanked by masked Hamas militants, before being transferred 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”.

Hamas said they freed Sayed in private to “honour and respect” Palestinians inside Israel.

– ‘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.

United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk condemned the “parading of bodies” during a ceremony in which coffins, with pictures of the dead attached, were displayed on a slogan-bedecked stage.

Bibas and her two young sons became symbols of Israel’s hostage ordeal.

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 the mother’s.

Hamas has long maintained 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”.

Out of 251 people taken hostage during the October 2023 attack, 62 are still held 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.

Vanguard News

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