Israel PM claims Hamas violations for delayed detainee release

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s Office announced on Sunday that the release of Palestinian prisoners, initially scheduled for Saturday, has been postponed.

The delay is justified by unsubstantiated claims that Hamas violated the ceasefire agreement.

Netanyahu’s office accused Hamas of conducting “humiliating ceremonies” and “cynical use of hostages for propaganda,” stating that the release of prisoners will be held off until Israel secures the next group of hostages.

“In light of the repeated violations by Hamas- including rituals that humiliate the dignity of our prisoners and the cynical political use of them for propaganda- it was decided to postpone the release of prisoners that was scheduled for yesterday until the release of the next prisoners is guaranteed, and without the rituals of humiliation,” the full statement read.

Prior to Netanyahu’s statement regarding Israeli authorities delaying the release of Palestinian prisoners due Saturday in exchange for six hostages freed from Gaza, Hamas accused Israel of a “blatant violation” of the truce deal.

According to to an unnamed minister speaking to the Times of Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conducted security consultations in his office.

The meeting included key ministers such as Defence Minister Israel Katz, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, as well as Israel’s security chiefs.

Earlier reports indicated that the release of 620 Palestinian prisoners were initially postponed until the prime minister held these security consultations.

Six Israelis, some of them dual nationals, were released earlier on Saturday, the last group of living hostages under the truce’s first phase.

After the six captives were freed, Netanyahu in a statement vowed to “continue acting decisively in order to bring all of our hostages back home”.

From Washington, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that Hamas would be “destroyed” if it did not release all the remaining hostages.

“Hamas’ treatment of hostages, including its brutal murder of the Bibas family, further illustrates their savagery and is yet another reason why we are saying these terrorists must release all of the hostages immediately or be destroyed,” he wrote on X.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, families waited for hours for their loved ones to be released from Israeli custody in exchange for the six Israelis taken back home.

“Waiting is very difficult,” said Shireen al-Hamamreh, whose brother was due for release.

“We are patient and we will remain stronger than the occupier, God willing,” she told news agency AFP in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

A ‘blatant violation’

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said Israel would free 620 inmates on Saturday, most of them Palestinians from Gaza taken into custody during the war.

Hamas spokesman Abdel Latif al-Qanou said in a statement that 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”.

This comes after an emotional two days in Israel, where the remains of hostage Shiri Bibas have been identified after the initial handover of a different body.

Netanyahu has said Hamas will pay “the full price” for what he termed a violation of the truce deal over Bibas’s return.

Bibas and her two young sons, among dozens taken captive during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war, had become symbols of the ordeal suffered by the Israeli hostages.

Forensics expert Chen Kugel said an autopsy conducted on their remains had found “no evidence of injuries caused by a bombing”.

Hamas operatives had claimed that all three were killed in the early days of Gaza war in an Israeli air strike.

 ‘Coming back home’

The first phase of the truce has so far enabled the release of 30 captives and is due to expire in early March.

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, Eliya Cohen, 27, Omer Shem Tov, 22, and Israeli-Argentine Omer Wenkert, 23, waved from a stage, flanked by masked Hamas operatives, before their handover to the Red Cross.

Under the cold winter rain in Rafah, southern Gaza, fighters 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”.

Relatives of Shoham wept and embraced as they watched his handover, video released by the Israeli government showed.

“Tal seems well considering the circumstances. An enormous weight is lifted from us,” the family of the Austrian-Israeli dual national said.

Hamas later published a video showing two Israelis still captive in Gaza watching one of Saturday’s ceremonies from a vehicle, pleading for Netanyahu to secure their release. 

‘Mix-up’

On Thursday, the first transfer of dead hostages under the truce sparked anger in Israel after analysis concluded that Shiri Bibas’s remains were not among the four bodies returned.

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 Shiri’s.

The family said in a statement she “was murdered in captivity and has now returned home… to rest.”

Israel’s military said that, after an analysis of the remains, Palestinian fighters had killed the Bibas boys, Ariel and Kfir, “with their bare hands” in November 2023.

Hamas on Saturday dismissed this account as “baseless lies”.

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

Israel’s campaign has killed at least 48,319 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Palestinian territory that the United Nations considers reliable.