Palestinian militant group Hamas handed over three Israeli hostages on Saturday, whose gaunt appearance shocked Israelis, while Israel began freeing dozens of Palestinians in the latest stage of a ceasefire deal aimed at ending the 15-month war in Gaza.

Ohad Ben Ami and Eli Sharabi, both taken hostage from Kibbutz Be'eri during the cross-border Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, and Or Levy, abducted that day from the Nova music festival, were led onto a Hamas podium by gunmen.

The three men all appeared thin, weak and pale, and in worse condition than the 18 hostages who had previously been freed under the truce agreed last month.

“He looked like a skeleton, it was awful to see,” Ohad Ben Ami’s mother-in-law, Michal Cohen, told Channel 13 News as she watched the Hamas-directed handover ceremony, which included the hostages answering questions posed by a masked man as militants armed with automatic rifles stood on each side.

In another show of force by Hamas, which has paraded fighters during previous releases, dozens of its militants deployed in central Gaza as it handed hostages over to the International Committee of the Red Cross. They were then driven in ICRC vehicles to Israeli forces.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the sight of the frail hostages forced into an apparent staged interview by Hamas militants was shocking and would be addressed.

Palestinian Prisoners Freed

Israel’s President Isaac Herzog described the release ceremony as cynical and vicious. “This is what a crime against humanity looks like,” he said

.In exchange for the hostages’ release, Israel is freeing 183 Palestinian prisoners, some convicted of involvement in attacks that killed dozens of people, as well as 111 detained in Gaza during the war.

In Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a bus carrying 42 freed Palestinian prisoners was welcomed by a cheering crowd. Some waved Palestinian flags and others chanted “Allahu akbar” or “God is the most great”.

Among Palestinian prisoners freed on Saturday was Eyad Abu Shkaidem, sentenced to 18 life terms in Israel for masterminding suicide attacks in revenge for Israel’s 2004 assassinations of former Hamas chiefs Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi.

For families of the Israeli hostages who have been held incommunicado in Gaza for more than a year, the wait has been a rollercoaster of dread and hope as the moments of reunion drew near.

The Hostage Families Forum compared the images of the three hostages to survivors of Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust.

“These images evoke the horrifying pictures from the liberation of the camps in 1945, the darkest chapter of our history. We have to get ALL THE HOSTAGES out of hell,” the forum said.

Painful Return

Some hostages face a painful return. Sharabi’s two teenage daughters and his British-born wife were slain in the Hamas attack on Kibbutz Be'eri, where one in 10 residents was killed.

The exchange is the latest in a series of swaps that have so far returned 13 Israeli and five Thai hostages abducted during the Hamas attack and released 583 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

Despite hiccups, a 42-day ceasefire and hostage-for-prisoner exchange worked out with US backing and mediation by Egypt and Qatar has held up since it took effect nearly three weeks ago.

But fears the deal might collapse before all the hostages are free have grown since US President Donald Trump’s surprise call for Palestinians to be moved from Gaza and for the enclave to be handed to the United States and developed into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

Hamas said in a statement that the crowds and armed display at the hostage handover demonstrated the Palestinians’ rejection of Trump’s plan and showed Hamas could not be excluded in post-war Gaza arrangements.

Arab states and Palestinian groups have rejected Trump’s proposal, which critics said would amount to ethnic cleansing.

Netanyahu, however, welcomed Trump’s intervention and his defence minister ordered the military to make plans to allow Palestinians who wished to leave Gaza to do so.

Under the ceasefire deal, 33 Israeli children, women and sick, wounded and older men are to be released during an initial phase in exchange for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

Negotiations on a second phase began this week aimed at returning the remaining hostages and agreeing a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza in preparation for a final end to the war.

Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

In response, Israel launched an air and ground war in Gaza that has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, and devastated much of the narrow enclave.

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza conflict.

Rights groups have reported grave abuses of Palestinians in Israeli detention since the start of the Gaza war. The Israeli military is investigating several cases of alleged abuse but rejects allegations of systematic abuse within its detention facilities.