Hamas stages elaborate ceremonies for the release of Israeli captives in Gaza in a bid to signal they are responsible stakeholders by “showing the whole world that they were trying to keep them alive — keep them safe”, an analyst says.

Before the release of six captives in yesterday’s seventh round of exchanges, Professor Sami Al-Arian of Istanbul Zaim University said the handover spectacles also doubled as a way for the group to preempt Israeli efforts to frame the narrative.

“They’re showing the whole world the conditions and also that this is going to be done in a very responsible way,” Professor Al-Arian told Al Jazeera.

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Five Israeli captives held by Hamas were handed over to the Red Cross (ICRC) at two different locations — Rafah in southern Gaza and Al Nuseirat refugee camp in central City — and returned to Israel in exchange for the release of an expected more than 600  Palestinian prisoners, including one who had been imprisoned for 40 years and many others who had never been charged.

A sixth Israeli captive was also released in Gaza City later without ceremony.

The last handover in this first phase of the three-phase ceasefire will end next Saturday with the return of the remains of four dead captives.

However, there has been a delay in the release of Palestinian prisoners without explanation and Hamas have accused Israel of a “blatant violation” and “procrastination and stalling tactics”.

“The [Israeli] occupation’s failure to comply with the release of the seventh batch of prisoners in the exchange deal at the agreed-upon time constitutes a blatant violation of the agreement,” said Hamas spokesperson Abdel Latif al-Qanou in a statement.

News media have been reporting that the release of the prisoners was on hold pending a security meeting of the Israeli government.

Al Jazeera reports that the Prime Minister’s Office later issued a statement saying that the release of more than 600 Palestinian detainees planned for Saturday had been delayed “until the release of the next hostages is guaranteed, and without the degrading ceremonies” at handovers of Israeli captives in Gaza.

Discussing US President Donald Trump’s plan to force Palestinians to leave Gaza — which he has now reframed as a “recommendation”, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political manoeuvring, and a recent Arab leaders’ plan for the reconstruction of the besieged enclave, Professor Al-Arian said any Arab initiative would work to Trump’s advantage.

“I think that’s probably [Trump’s] intention, to get the Arabs to move,” he said.

“Because his real intention is to make sure that Hamas will not be in power in Gaza after this is over, he doesn’t want an resumption of the war, this is going to actually divert him from his agenda, domestically and internationally.”

Hamas condemned Netanyahu’s “procrastination and stalling tactics” and described the delay as a “blatant violation” of the Gaza ceasefire deal.

LIVE updates https://t.co/ovPUWrBQSW

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) February 23, 2025

Shiri Bibas’s body identified
Meanwhile, in a statement posted on the Bring Bibas Back Instagram account, the Bibas family has now said experts at Israel’s Institute of Forensic Medicine have positively identified Shiri Bibas’s body.

Hamas delivered another coffin to the Red Cross on Friday reportedly containing the remains of Israeli captive Shiri Bibas, after Israel had accused the group of returning an unidentified person in her place in a mix-up during Thursday’s handover.

The bodies of her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, had been identified along with a fourth captive, 83-year-old Oded Lifshitz, by forensic experts on Thursday.

Relatives of the Bibas family have rejected attempts to politicise the deaths.

The family’s statement blamed the deaths on the Israeli government, saying it had failed to act in time and was ultimately accountable.

Hamas has claimed the family was killed along with Palestinians in an Israeli bombing attack while being held captive in Gaza.

“There was apparently a mixup, and according to Palestinian groups, that probably happened after the Israeli bombardment of the site in which the captives were held,” reports Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Amman, Jordan.

Hamas were investigating and promised a report on the circumstances of the mistake.

Speaking about the frail, disoriented appearance of the three freed Israeli captives yesterday, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said: “People are starving in Gaza.

“Children are dying of malnutrition because Netanyahu has weaponised hunger and famine.”

“Incidentally”, Bishara told Al Jazeera, “that’s why Netanyahu is sought [on a war crimes warrant] by the ICC [International Criminal Court].

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Bishara condemned the Israeli prime minister’s “crocodile tears” over the freeing of hostages Eli Sharabi, Ohad Ben Ami and Ori Levy in exchange for 183 Palestinian captives.

Netanyahu’s ‘weaponised hunger’ in Gaza.      Video: Al Jazeera

“Netanyahu is complaining that three individuals lost weight when the entire Gaza Strip was ‘put on a diet’, as the racists in the Israeli government said.

“It’s beyond absurd. It’s beyond racist. The real issue is that thousands of Palestinian prisoners have been tortured in Israel’s jails.”

Hamas ‘theatrical scenes’
Bishara also suggested that today’s “theatrical scenes of Hamas during the exchanges would rub Netanyahu the wrong way, by proving once again that Hamas is not defeated.”

On the other hand, Bishara said that Netanyahu “has succeeded” with the undeclared objective of the total destruction of Gaza.

“[But] I don’t think the Israeli establishment really cares about Gaza.

“It wishes to cut it off and push it into the sea. What it really cares about is the West Bank and the Golan Heights — they think that would secure the [Israeli] settlement for future generations.”

He added: “Zionism is responsible for turning Israelis into occupiers, the torturers, the racists.”

COMMENTARY: By Eugene Doyle

Watching footage of Palestinian parliamentarian and hostage Khalida Jarrar emerge from Israeli captivity was jarring — a far, muffled cry from the sense of happiness and relief most of us felt seeing the young female Israeli soldiers released by Hamas around the same time.

What a study in contrast.

Khalida was clearly emaciated, traumatised and had turned, in the same period of time, from a powerful dynamic woman into a fragile, elderly human being who moved with difficulty.

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What a difference it makes who holds you captive. It goes without saying I didn’t see this on any mainstream news outlet.

In a previous period of imprisonment — for being a member of the PFLP, a proscribed organisation — the Israelis wouldn’t even allow Khalida Jarrar to attend the funeral of her own daughter.

Instead she sent a message that was read at Suha’s funeral in 2021:

I am in so much pain, my child, only because I miss you.
I am in so much pain, my child, only because I miss you.

From the depths of my agony, I reached out and
embraced the sky of our homeland through the window
of my prison cell in Damon Prison, Haifa.
Worry not, my child.
I stand tall, and steadfast, despite the shackles and the jailer.
I am a mother in sorrow, from yearning to see you one last time.

Suha, my precious.

They have stripped me from bidding you a final goodbye kiss.
I bid you farewell with a flower.
Your absence is searingly painful, excruciatingly painful.
But I remain steadfast and strong,
Like the mountains of beloved Palestine.

No mainstream coverage
I searched online and found no mainstream outlet had covered Khalida’s release amid the flood of stories about the Israeli hostages. A search to see if Australian or New Zealand MPs had called for the release of their fellow legislator netted zero results.

To them, she is no doubt a non-person. Yet, Khalida Jarrar is a leading political activist and one of dozens of legislators imprisoned by the Israelis. She endured. She remained steadfast.

“The entire system of political imprisonment is based on suppressing Palestinian organising,” said Charlotte Kates, coordinator of Samidoun, the Palestinian Prisoner Support Network.

The four female Israeli “Offence” Force (IDF) soldiers, according to all the many images and reports, were fit, happy and well-fed after their 15 months in Hamas captivity.

In contrast Palestinian prisoners typically had lost 16kg by the time they were freed. The Israelis with all the food and resources in the world made a policy — an actual policy — of mistreating prisoners, reducing food to a minimum, often beating them, finding perverse ways to humiliate them and on many occasions sexually assaulting men, women, boys and girls who had been dragged into their custody without charge.

Many, an unknown number, died at their hands.

Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, called months ago for legislation to allow the execution of Palestinian prisoners “with a shot in the head” and said he would provide minimal food to them until the law was enacted. I couldn’t find a single Western leader who called for him to be arrested.

Israeli human rights report
These crimes are filling compendia being compiled by the United Nations, the ICC and multiple organisations worldwide. You can read some of it here in an Israeli human rights report, “Welcome to Hell, the Israeli prison system as a network of torture camps”.

Our media has a lot to answer for — for what was done to the thousands of Palestinian hostages because of its starring role in silencing Palestinian voices and hiding from view the realities of the Israeli prison system. Thousands were never charged with any crime — other than being Palestinian.

Entire congregations in mosques, groups of people in refugee centres, were indiscriminately swept up and tossed into Israeli concentration camps.

Were future historians to look back on these times and only have the mainstream media to go by, they would have lots of wonderful photos of the Israeli hostages, know them by name, see family hugs, biographical details, and listen to interviews with friends and relatives. In contrast, the Palestinians would turn towards History and we would see blank faces, erased of personality, all the detail of their stories rubbed out.

That’s why it is imperative to find better sources of news and information, like Middle East Eye, Palestine Chronicle, Electronic Intifada and Pearls & Irritations, that can enrich our understanding of our times and the experience of the victims of Western genocidal violence.

In his excellent article “The Other Hostages”, human rights lawyer Jonathan Kuttab says: “From the Palestinian perspective: there are about 13,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli jails who are just as worthy of our concern and also merit our sympathy, and whose families will rejoice at their long-awaited release.”

Turning a blind eye to Israeli mistreatment of prisoners — and the mainstream media bias in favour of all things Israeli — goes back decades. But let’s look at the months since October 7th.

No fact-checking
All the mainstream media and servile politicians raced to report without fact-checking the lies the Israelis and Americans, including President Biden, told about beheaded babies and mass rapes. Few had the decency to walk back the calumnies even after official retractions and international investigations disproved them.

In October 2023 I wrote one of my first stories post-October 7th on this very topic.

Within a month of October 7, eight BBC journalists wrote to Al Jazeera saying “the corporation is failing to humanise Palestinians . . .  investing greater effort in humanising Israeli victims compared with Palestinians, and omitting key historical context in coverage.”

CNN staff told British colleagues last year that their network’s pro-Israel slant amounts to “journalistic malpractice”.

Hats off to Novara Media, one of the larger alternative news and analysis platforms for its exposure of bias. What they found was that Palestinians are “killed” whereas Israelis are “massacred” or “slaughtered”.

Checking over 1000 articles by the UK’s supposedly progressive, left-leaning outlets — The Guardian, The Independent, Daily Mirror – Novara found that “all three publications favoured Israeli lives, narratives and voices.”

Taking a list of emotive words they cross-checked and found that 77 percent were about violence against Israelis and only 23 percent about Palestinians. Well over 95 percent of victims of violence are Palestinians, 100 percent of land thefts are by Israelis. Facts matter.

Journalism ‘used’ for racist war crimes
This is journalism being used in the service of racist war crimes, used to normalise the mistreatment of prisoners and other Palestinian untermenschen.

In the case of The Independent, it ran 70 stories on Israeli hostages (who at peak numbered about 250) and just one story on a Palestinian hostage (they number over 10,000).

British journalist Owen Jones deserves a medal for reports like: “BBC in Civil War over Gaza.” The report details the efforts of journalists within the organisation to deliver more balanced coverage but the extent to which those efforts are thwarted by powerful pro-Israel operatives within the corporation who ensure “systematic pro-Israel propaganda at the corporation.”

“This unprecedented slaughter could not have happened without powerful cheerleaders,” Jones said in a recent piece about media co-conspirators with Israel in the genocide. “Hold them to account.”

Damn right. I pray to whatever gods may be that justice will one day be served on all those who by their actions or by their “journalism” allowed these crimes to be committed.

I’ll give the last word to Khalida Jarrar as I wish her a full and speedy recovery:

“All I wanted was to bid my daughter a final farewell – with a kiss on her forehead and to tell her I love her as much as I love Palestine.”

Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz He is a lapsed Catholic who has maintained lifelong contact with some of the nuns who played an influential part in his upbringing.

Celebration time. Some Palestinian prisoners have been released. A mother reunited with her daughter. A young mother reunited with her babies.

Still in prison are people who never received a fair trial, people that independent inquirers say are wrongly imprisoned. Still in prison kids who cursed soldiers who walked into their villages wielding guns.

Still imprisoned far too many Palestinians who threw stones against bullets. Still imprisoned thousands of Palestinian hostages.

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Many of us never knew how many hostages had been stolen, hauled into jails by Israel before 7 October 2023. We only heard the one-sided story of that day. The day when an offence force on a border was taken by surprise and when it panicked and blasted and bombed.

When that army guarding the occupation did more to lose lives than save lives.

Many never knew and perhaps never will know how many of the Palestinians who were kidnapped before and after that day had been beaten and tortured, including with the torture of rape.

We do know many have been murdered. We do know that some released from prison died soon after. We do not know how many more Palestinians will be taken hostage and imprisoned behind the prison no reporter is allowed to photograph.

Israelis boast over prison crime
The only clue to what happens inside is that Israelis have boasted this crime on national television. The clue is that Israeli soldiers have been tried for raping their own colleagues.

Make no mistake, this is a mean misogynist mercantile army. No sensible rational caring person would wish to serve in it.

No mother on any side of this conflict should lose her child. No father should bury his daughter or son. No grandparent should grieve over the loss of a life that should outlive them.

The crimes need to be exposed. All of them. Our media filters the truth. It does not provide a fair or full story. If you want that switch for pity’s sake go to Al Jazeera English.

When Radio New Zealand reports that people who fled are returning to Gaza it should report the full truth and not redact any part of the statement.

The Palestinian people were forced to flee their homes in Gaza. Those who were never responsible for any crime were bombed out of their homes, they fled as their families were murdered, burned to death, shot by snipers. They fled while soldiers mocked their dead children.

They return home to ashes. If we want peace we must face the truths that create conflict. We are all connected in peace and war and peace.

Peace is the strongest greeting. It sears the heart and soars the soul.

It can only be achieved when we recognise and stop the anguish that causes oppression.

Saige England is a freelance journalist and author living in the Aotearoa New Zealand city of Ōtautahi.