Hamas released three Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for 183 Palestinians jailed by Israel, in a staged handover where rifle-toting Hamas fighters prodded their gaunt captives to give short speeches, effectively at gunpoint, thanking the militants who had held them captive for 16 months.
The events made an already tenuous cease-fire more fragile, possibly endangering the next steps in the truce agreement. Israel is scheduled to pull back from part of Gaza on Sunday to allow Palestinians there to move more freely, but has threatened to take unspecified action in response to what it says are Hamas violations of the cease-fire.
And talks on the second phase of the truce deal are supposed to be advancing now, amid deep consternation in the Arab world over President Trump’s proposal to move the more than two million Gazans out of the enclave and have the United States take over the territory.
For Hamas, the heavily choreographed hostage handover reinforced the group’s message that, despite a devastating war in the Gaza Strip that killed thousands of its members and much of its leadership, the group remains in power there, defying Israeli leaders’ vow to wipe it out.
In a statement on the hostage release, Hamas said, “This confirms that our people and their resistance have the upper hand.”
Hamas claims it has treated its captives benevolently, but many Israelis saw the images as almost unbearable evidence to the contrary. Three frail, painfully thin hostages were paraded on a stage before a crowd in the city of Deir al-Balah, each holding a Hamas-issued “release certificate,” and made to mouth words written for them.
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