An Isaeli hostage whose British wife and teenage daughters were ruthlessly killed by Hamas has been released in the latest stage of a ceasefire deal aimed at opening the way to ending the 15-month hellish war in Gaza.
Eli Sharabi, dressed in a brown shirt and trousers, was walked on stage by Hamas fighters on Saturday in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza.
Ohad Ben Ami and Or Levy were also paraded in front of a crowd before being handed over to a team from International Committee of the Red Cross.
All three hostages, looking gaunt, were seen holding certificates and appeared to be intervewed by a masked Hamas fighter.
Crowds of people gathered at the site of their release, where the ICRC vehicles waited to collect the hostages and transport them to Israeli forces in Gaza, who will then take them into Israel.
Family members of Sharabi cheeried as they watched him and the two other hostages stepping out from the Hamas vehicle.
But they were quick to notice how thin and frail all three men appeared to be.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum Headquarters commented that the ‘disturbing images from the release of Ohad, Eli, and Or serve as yet another stark and painful evidence that leaves no room for doubt – there is no time to waste for the hostages’.
Or Levy, Eli Sharabi and Ohad Ben Ami, hostages held in Gaza since the deadly October 7, 2023 attack, are released by Hamas militants as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in this still image taken from a video, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, February 8, 2025
‘We must get them all out, down to the very last hostage,’ the group says in a press release.
In exchange, Israel will release 183 Palestinian prisoners, some convicted of involvement in attacks that killed dozens of people and including 18 serving life sentences and 111 detained in Gaza during the war, according to Hamas.
For families of the hostages who have been held incommunicado in Gaza for more than a year, the wait has been a roller-coaster of dread and hope as the moments of reunion drew near.
‘I can’t even start to describe the emotions, the excitement, how happy we are that it’s finally close to be over,’ said Michael Levy, brother of Or Levy, who lost his wife in the October 7 attack and has a three-year-old son.
‘We are waiting to hug him, waiting to see Almog (Levy’s son), hugging his father again.’
Other hostages also face a harsh 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.
‘We are counting the minutes, the seconds and we just want him to be here already,’ said Astrid Dafan-van Dien, a friend of Sharabi, ‘although it will be very difficult because of Lianne (Sharabi’s wife) and the girls.’
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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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’.
Arab states and Palestinian groups have rejected the proposal, which critics said would amount to ethnic cleansing.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin 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.
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.
