The family of about 600 prisoners remains in trouble after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Saturday that he would postpone his release, a decision that violated a ceasefire agreement to release six Israeli hostages earlier in Hamas’s release of six Israeli hostages terms of exchange.
Netanyahu quoted “Hamas repeatedly violated the acts, including rituals that humiliate our hostages and cynical hostages for propaganda purposes.”
Hamas performs a lot of carefully orchestrated rituals every time he takes the hostage back to Israel.
Netanyahu said he would not release the Palestinian prisoners and detainees “until the release of the next hostage without a humiliating ceremony.”
According to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, 63 people remained in Gaza, 27 of whom are considered alive. Their release has not been arranged yet.
Hamas condemned the delay and called the allegations surrounding the ceremony a “fragile excuse designed to evade the obligations of the agreement.”
It added that the delay exposed the ongoing ceasefire agreement “serious danger” and urged the United States and other international partners to impose a force on Israel to release detained Palestinians.
The release of Palestinian prisoners and detainees – the largest group to be released under the ceasefire agreement – is part of the final prisoner exchange in the first phase of the ceasefire agreement. It will include 445 detainees who have not been sentenced to prison, as well as 24 women and children.
More than 400 of these prisoners are destined to be in Gaza, where families have been waiting for their loved ones to be received in the cold.
Asia Khaleel Fayyad met her husband as soon as possible after traveling with her son and father-in-law, anxiously waiting with her son on her knees in a bus shelter, worried that the party might be indefinitely ground delay.
“Pressure killed us,” Feyed told the NBC News Team. “We can’t wait. We have lost all hope. We have been waiting since yesterday, yesterday we arrived so we can meet soon. We are really afraid that they will kill our happiness and leave us only tomorrow or after tomorrow or tomorrow. Only then can you see them.”
The Palestinian Prisoners Club said Israel decided to postpone the release of more than 600 Palestinians in the form of “organized terrorism against prisoners and their families”.
On Saturday, many Red Cross vehicles, including buses, were waiting outside the prison in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The first phase of the ceasefire is due to end on March 1, but the latest delay has become a major challenge for the agreement as Phase 2 remains uncertain.
Despite many setbacks, a ceasefire agreement was reached. Hamas accused Israel of blocking aid to Gaza, while Israel accused Hamas of performing a humiliating ceremony during the hostage release.
Last week, Hamas delivered a coffin to Israel that claimed to possess the remains of the hostage Shiri Bibas. The IDF later said the tests showed that the body belonged to someone else.
The incident sparked anger among Israeli officials, who the IDF called it a “very serious violation” of the ceasefire. Hamas called it a mistake and said Bibas’s body might have been “mixed” with others when it was hit by Israeli air strikes.
Hamas sent another set of human remains back to Israel earlier on Saturday, which was identified as Bebas’s body.
