Jerusalem (EFE).- Hamas leader Mahmoud Mardawi said this Sunday that they will not resume negotiations with Israel for the second phase of the ceasefire if the more than 600 Palestinian prisoners agreed to in the seventh exchange are not released.
In addition, Mardawi called on the mediators – Egypt, Qatar, and the United States – to force Israel to abide by the of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement signed with Israel.
Israel scheduled to release 620 Palestinian prisoners and detainees on Sunday: 445 detainees held in Gaza after Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, including 24 women and children; 97 people to deport to other countries; 43 prisoners from the West Bank and East Jerusalem; and 11 others held in Gaza before October 7.
However, early Sunday morning, Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu announced in a statement that the release of the Palestinian prisoners would be delayed until “the release of the next hostages is guaranteed, and without degrading ceremonies.”
Israel criticizes Hamas for forcing Israelis, after some 16 months of captivity, to take a stand, where they usually greet the Gazan public and must give a speech.
Netanyahu also criticized that the delivery of four corpses on Thursday, including the children of the Bibas family, was live and their coffins were on a dais.
On Saturday, as in previous exchanges, Hamas put the six freed hostages (except for Hisham al Sayed, a Bedouin Israeli who suffers from schizophrenia and had been held hostage for a decade) through scenarios, surrounded by militia, before handing them over to the Red Cross.
Hamas also released a video of two other captives still in the enclave, Evyatar David and Guy Gilboa Dalal, watching from a van the release of three of the freed hostages to Israel. From the vehicle, the two hostages appealed to Netanyahu to proceed with the ceasefire agreement.
This situation now jeopardizes the negotiations of the second phase of the ceasefire agreement, which should already be underway by Saturday, March 1. According to the text, the first phase concludes with the last exchange of hostages (this time the bodies of four of them) for another batch of Palestinian prisoners.
Families wait in the cold for Israel to release the prisoners
“This is very hard,” says Hassan Yaseen, a Palestinian from Jenin whose brother has been in an Israeli prison for 20 years. Despite the cold and hail, he spent Saturday night and part of Sunday in Ramallah, West Bank, hoping to reunite with Bilal.
The 36-year-old explains that since the beginning of the war on October 7, 2023, “every day (in prison) has been like a year,” and claims that all those deprived of their liberty have been cruelly treated since then. He also laments that his mother ed away without being able to see his 43-year-old brother Bilal.
Hassan hopes that Israel will fulfill its part of the agreement, but fears that this delay will affect negotiations for the second phase of the ceasefire.
Aida Ali Daraghmeh, the wife of Palestinian prisoner Yahya Hafez Daraghmeh, who should have been released on Saturday after 21 years in prison, explains to EFE that reaching Ramallah from Tubas, located in the northern West Bank, where she lives, took her more than half a day.
The numerous Israeli roadblocks have increased in the last month, amid a military operation of that country in the Palestinian city of Jenin.
Aida decided to stay in Ramallah with her children, four girls, a boy, and her one-year-old grandson, hoping that negotiations would continue and her relatives would be released.
Like many Palestinian prisoner families, she has not been able to see her husband since October 2023.
Some family who came to Ramallah to see the released prisoners spent the night in two hotels set up by the governorate.
Others, including families with children, slept in their cars, parked next to the Mahmoud Darwish Museum, where the prisoners sent to the West Bank are scheduled to arrive. EFE
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