By Carrie Keller-Lynn and Summer Said
Hamas released three more hostages on Saturday under a three-week-old cease-fire deal that has become a test of wills between the militant group and Israel.
The group freed Or Levy, 34, who was taken from the Nova music festival 16 months ago, and Ohad Ben Ami, 56, and Eli Sharabi, 52, who were kidnapped from their homes in Kibbutz Be’eri near the Gaza border. Israel reciprocated by releasing 183 Palestinian prisoners later in the day.
Israelis reacted with alarm at the hostages’ condition after months in captivity.
“He looks really, really terrible. It’s really sad for me to see him like that,” Ben Ami’s mother-in-law, Michal Cohen, told Israeli television as she saw the first images of him on a stage Hamas had set up for the handover. Other family members cried on camera, saying the men looked frail. Israeli Health Ministry official Hagar Mizrahi said the men suffered from malnutrition.
Gal Hirsch, in charge of hostage affairs in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, said Israel had complained to the mediators in the cease-fire talks about the men’s condition.
Israeli hospitals were on standby to receive the three men, who had been held since being taken during the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack that left 1,200 dead and spurred the war in Gaza.
“He’s certainly returning another person,” Levy’s brother Tal told Israel television shortly before his release.
From left, Or Levy, Eli Sharabi and Ohad Ben Ami pictured before their time in Hamas captivity. PHOTO: /ASSOCIATED PRESS
Both Sharabi and Levy lost family members during the initial Hamas attack. Sharabi’s neighbors from Be’eri wondered whether he exited captivity knowing that his wife and two daughters are dead. Levy’s wife had died, leaving their young son in the care of family over the past year.
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