Hamas frees three more Israeli hostages, including men whose wives were killed in Oct. 7 attack
The release of one of three Hamas hostages freed Saturday was cruelly spoiled when he was told his brother was killed in Gaza — and then learned his wife and children were slain in the Oct. 7 massacre.?
The heartbreaking news came as Eli Sharabi, Ohad Ben Ami, and Or Levy became the latest hostages released under the fragile truce between Hamas and Israel, as one of the terror group’s leaders declared the deal was on shaky ground.
Israel’s “procrastination and lack of commitment in implementing the first phase… certainly exposes this agreement to danger and thus it may stop or collapse,” Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told the Agence France-Presse.
On Saturday, Hamas delivered Sharabi, 52, Ben Ami, 56, and Levy, 34, to members of the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has been coordinating the handoffs in Gaza.
The three men appeared emaciated and uneasy on their feet as they were paraded on stage in Gaza in front of a crowd of armed militants and onlookers, prompting critics and Israeli officials to later declare their conditions a “crime against humanity.”
The men were then transferred by Red Cross members to the Israel Defense Forces and driven to Israel, where they were embraced by their tearful relatives and taken to hospitals for medical examinations — and where Sharabi received the soul crushing news of his family’s demise.
The terrorists casually informed the gaunt-looking Sharabi during one of the bizarre send-off ceremony of the death of his brother, Yossi, whose body remains in Gaza according to reports.
When he was finally brought to see his family, Sharabi asked for his wife Lianne and daughters, Noiya and Yahel — only to be told they’d been slain by Hamas after being discovered in the family’s safe room in their home in Kibbutz Be’eri,according to the Times of Israel, citing Israel’s Channel 12.
He was greeted by his mother and sister, who worked ahead of time on the best way to tell him of his family’s slaughter, the Times of Israel said.
Sharabi’s father-in-law, Peter Brisley, had been watching the hand off from Britain.
“He looks as though he’s been to Belsen,” Brisley said.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog seethed that the three hostages’ physical appearances were “what a crime against humanity looks like.”
“The whole world must look directly at Ohad, Or, and Eli—returning after 491 days of hell, starved, emaciated and pained—being exploited in a cynical and cruel spectacle by vile murderers,” Herzog said.
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“We will not gloss over the shocking scenes that we saw today,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Saturday.
Medical officials said that the three men were suffering from extreme malnutrition and had lost a significant amount of weight while held captive for 16 months in Gaza.
“These are difficult scenes,” Health Ministry representative Dr. Hagar Mizrahi said at a news conference at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, where two of the hostages were recovering, according to Times of Israel.
Sharabi was abducted by Hamas from his home in Kibbutz Be’eri during Hamas’ harrowing Oct. 7, 2023 rampage across southern Israel.
Ben Ami also a resident of Kibbutz Be’eri, was kidnapped on Oct. 7 alongside his wife, Raz, who was later freed during the November 2023 cease-fire.
Levy was taken hostage during the Nova music festival slaughter near Kibbutz Re’im, where the terrorists murdered at least 260 people, including his wife, Eynav.
The couple’s now-3-year-old son, Almog, has been in the care of Levy’s parents, and reportedly told his father in a video call on Saturday: “Dad, it took you a long time to come back.”
“We missed you so much,” Levy’s mother, Geula, said while hugging her son.
The swap marks the fifth round of hostage-for-prisoner exchanges since the cease-fire deal went into effect Jan. 19.
In return for the three men’s release, Israel released 183 Palestinians prisoners, including 18 who had been serving life sentences and 54 serving long sentences, Hamas said Friday.
Among Palestinian prisoners freed was Eyad Abu Shkaidem, who had been sentenced to 18 life terms for orchestrating suicide attacks in retaliation for Israel’s assassinations of Hamas leaders in 2004.
The ceasefire began with a six-week truce, during which Hamas agreed to free 33 hostages, beginning with Israeli female civilians and soldiers, followed by men over 50 and those whose are severely ill, in exchange for more than 1,900 Palestinians jailed or detained by Israel.
So far, the terror group has given up 21 hostages, including five Thai citizens who were kidnapped during the Oct. 7 attack. There are 76 hostages remaining in Gaza — including three who have been held captive since 2014 — around 30 of whom are presumed dead.
Saturday’s hand-off, however, followed the latest crisis threatening to upend the tenuous cease-fire.
On Friday, Israel ripped into Hamas for failing to share the list of hostages’ names at least 24 hours before they were to be released.
Hamas, meanwhile, alleged Israel was violating the cease-fire deal by blocking crucial aid from being delivered to Gaza, prompting the terror group to delay sharing the hostages’ names.
The ongoing truce brought a pause to 15 months of ruinous warfare sparked by the terror group’s brutal massacre of 1,200 Israelis, and kidnapping of another 251.
With Post wires
