Hamas spokesman Abu Obaida vowed in a statement on Sunday evening to focus all efforts on opposing Israel and said Hamas would abide by the terms of the hostage-ceasefire deal in Gaza so long as Israel does, in a video published shortly after the terror group released three civilian women from captivity.
The spokesman began his comments by marking Sunday as “the 471st day after the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, which ignited the spark of the liberation of Palestine and hammered the last nail into the coffin of Israel.”
He was referring to the group’s October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel, when terrorists killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages, starting the Gaza war. It was named for the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
“We are committed to the ceasefire agreement, but this depends on the enemy’s adherence,” he said, and accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of foiling previous opportunities to reach a deal, saying, “The agreement reached could have been made a year ago if it had aligned with Netanyahu’s ambitions.”
Hailing what he termed the Palestinian people’s sacrifice of countless “martyrs” in the past 15 months, the Hamas spokesman vowed to continue to oppose the Jewish state, and said “all attempts to integrate this entity into the region” would be met with resistance.
Hamas’s video came shortly after the terror group released three Israeli women — Romi Gonen, 24, Emily Damari, 28, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31 — from captivity. On October 7, Gonen was abducted from the Nova music festival, while Damari and Steinbrecher were taken from their homes in Kibbutz Kfar Aza. They had been held in Gaza since.
Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida in a video address after the release of three Israeli hostages, January 19, 2025 (X)
On Sunday evening, masked Hamas gunmen handed the three women to the Red Cross at Saraya Square in central Gaza City, where armed men who wore green Hamas headbands struggled to guard the cars from an unruly crowd chanting slogans of support for the terror group.
A clear angle of the moment of the hostage handover pic.twitter.com/YZubfDGb7H
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) January 19, 2025
The three women are the first of 33 hostages set to be freed in the 42-day first phase of the deal, which commits the sides to a ceasefire in Gaza, the release of the hostages, and the release by Israel of Palestinian security prisoners.
Images shared by Palestinian media before the hostages were handed off to the Red Cross showed dozens of Hamas gunmen at the scene.
لحظات تاريخية.. انتشار كتائب القســـــام بحضور جماهيري حاشد، خلال عملية تسليم المقاومة لـ3 أسيرات إسرائيليات لتنفيذ الدفعة الأولى من المرحلة الأولى لصفقة تبادل الأسرى. pic.twitter.com/hALv2UmFhY
— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) January 19, 2025
Armed Hamas operatives were also seen parading and driving around in vehicles in several locations in Gaza throughout Sunday, as the terror group sought to show it maintains strength in the Strip after 15 months of Israeli efforts to destroy it.
Footage also showed Hamas police officers deployed to the streets of Gaza.
???? صور لمقاتلي #كتائب_القسام في ساحة السرايا وسط مدينة #غزة، حيث سيتم تسليم الأسيرات الإسرائيليات للصليب الأحمر. pic.twitter.com/m7qP5CmBdj
— عربي بوست (@arabic_post) January 19, 2025
In exchange for all 33 hostages to be freed in the 42-day first phase of the deal, Israel will, by the end of phase one, hand over up to 1,904 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, including several serving multiple life sentences for deadly terror attacks and murders.
The next hostage release under the accord is scheduled for Saturday, when four more women hostages are to be freed. All 33 hostages to be freed in the first phase of the deal are so-called humanitarian cases — women, children, men over 50, and ill or injured men. Most but not all of the 33 are believed to be alive.
Of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas during the October 7, 2023, invasion and massacre in southern Israel, 91 are now believed to remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 40 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the body of an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014. The body of another IDF soldier, also killed in 2014, was recently recovered from Gaza in a clandestine Israeli military operation.
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