Hamas-led mil­i­tants re­leased three gaunt, frail-look­ing Is­raeli hostages and Is­rael freed near­ly 200 Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers Sat­ur­day in the lat­est ex­change of a cease­fire that has paused 16 months of war in Gaza.

The hostages’ con­di­tion and scenes of Hamas forc­ing them to speak in a han­dover cer­e­mo­ny sparked out­rage in Is­rael and could in­crease pres­sure on Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu to ex­tend the cease­fire be­yond its cur­rent six-week phase.

Ne­tanyahu has sig­nalled he would re­sume the war, even if that means leav­ing dozens of hostages in cap­tiv­i­ty. “Pres­i­dent Trump com­plete­ly agreed with me: We will do every­thing to re­turn all the hostages, but Hamas will not be there,” Ne­tanyahu said af­ter the ex­change.

Civil­ians Eli Shara­bi, 52; Ohad Ben Ami, 56; and Or Levy, 34, were among about 250 peo­ple tak­en dur­ing the Hamas-led at­tack on Is­rael on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war.

Is­raelis’ joy turned to shock and tears when they saw their ema­ci­at­ed state.

Lat­er Sat­ur­day, Is­rael re­leased 183 Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers, some al­so ap­pear­ing gaunt and weak. The Red Cres­cent said sev­en were tak­en to hos­pi­tals. Many Pales­tini­ans re­leased dur­ing the cease­fire have ap­peared ema­ci­at­ed, and have al­leged abus­es in cus­tody.

It was the fifth ex­change since the cease­fire be­gan Jan. 19. Twen­ty-one hostages have now been freed.

The Red Cross said it was “in­creas­ing­ly con­cerned about the con­di­tions sur­round­ing re­lease op­er­a­tions” and urged all par­ties to en­sure re­leas­es are dig­ni­fied and pri­vate.

A dozen more hostages yet to be freed in first phase

An Is­raeli Health Min­istry rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Dr. Ha­gar Mizrahi, not­ed “se­vere mal­nu­tri­tion” and a “sig­nif­i­cant de­crease” in body weight in the hostages re­leased, as fam­i­lies again feared for the dozens of oth­ers still held in Gaza. Not all are alive.

“If any­one had any doubt about how ur­gent it is to bring every­one back ... to­day we got a wake-up call,” Moshe Or, broth­er of hostage Avinatan Or, told a week­ly ral­ly in Tel Aviv.

Gal Hirsch, Ne­tanyahu’s co­or­di­na­tor for hostages, said that “we will not re­main silent about this. A mes­sage has been passed on to the me­di­a­tors, and ac­tion will be tak­en ac­cord­ing­ly.”

Hamas’ mil­i­tary wing said it had made ef­forts to pre­serve the hostages’ lives “de­spite the (Is­raeli) bom­bard­ment.”

The cease­fire’s first phase calls for the re­lease of 33 hostages and near­ly 2,000 Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers, the re­turn of Pales­tini­ans to north­ern Gaza and an in­crease in hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid to the dev­as­tat­ed ter­ri­to­ry. Is­rael says Hamas has con­firmed eight of the 33 hostages are dead.

U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s stun­ning pro­pos­al to trans­fer the Pales­tin­ian pop­u­la­tion out of Gaza could com­pli­cate talks over the sec­ond and more dif­fi­cult phase, when Hamas is to re­lease dozens more hostages in re­turn for a last­ing cease­fire. His pro­pos­al was wel­comed by Is­rael but re­ject­ed by Pales­tini­ans and most of the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

Hamas may be re­luc­tant to free more hostages if it be­lieves the U.S. and Is­rael are se­ri­ous about de­pop­u­lat­ing Gaza, which rights groups say would vi­o­late in­ter­na­tion­al law.

Ne­tanyahu on Sat­ur­day di­rect­ed a del­e­ga­tion to go to Qatar to dis­cuss the cease­fire agree­ment’s tech­ni­cal de­tails, and the se­cu­ri­ty Cab­i­net will meet about ne­go­ti­a­tions on the truce’s sec­ond phase, ac­cord­ing to an Is­raeli of­fi­cial who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause they weren’t au­tho­rized to dis­cuss de­tails of the talks.

Hostages learn of loved ones’ fate

Shara­bi and Ben Ami were cap­tured from Kib­butz Beeri, one of the farm­ing com­mu­ni­ties hard­est hit by the Hamas at­tack, while Levy was tak­en from the No­va mu­sic fes­ti­val.

They are on­ly now learn­ing the fate of some fam­i­ly mem­bers, ac­cord­ing to Is­raeli me­dia. Shara­bi’s wife and two teenage daugh­ters were killed, and his broth­er Yos­si died in cap­tiv­i­ty. Levy’s wife was killed. Ben Ami’s wife, Raz, was re­leased dur­ing a week­long cease­fire in No­vem­ber 2023 that saw more than 100 hostages freed.

“It’s over, it’s over,” Levy’s broth­er Michael said as they em­braced.

“I left XXL, I came back medi­um,” Ben Ami said as he hugged his daugh­ters. One of them, El­la, told Is­raeli chan­nel 12 that “it took me a mo­ment to re­al­ize that this was my fa­ther.”

The Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers re­leased in­clude 18 serv­ing life sen­tences for dead­ly at­tacks on Is­raelis, 54 serv­ing long-term sen­tences and 111 Pales­tini­ans from Gaza de­tained af­ter the Oct. 7 at­tack but not tried for any crime. All are men, ages 20 to 61.

Vir­tu­al­ly every Pales­tin­ian has a friend, rel­a­tive or ac­quain­tance who has been im­pris­oned.

Sev­en of the re­leased pris­on­ers were trans­ferred to Egypt. Oth­ers were trans­ferred to Pales­tin­ian cus­tody in the oc­cu­pied West Bank, where cheer­ing sup­port­ers wel­comed them. Some had been de­tained over of­fences rang­ing from bomb at­tacks to in­volve­ment in mil­i­tant or­ga­ni­za­tions.

They in­clude Iyad Abu Shakhdam, 49, locked up for near­ly 21 years over his in­volve­ment in Hamas at­tacks in crowd­ed civil­ian ar­eas that killed dozens of Is­raelis. That in­clud­ed a 2004 sui­cide bus bomb­ing in Beer­she­ba that killed 16 peo­ple.

“From Oct. 7, 2023, to to­day we don’t know any­thing about what is hap­pen­ing out­side the prison,” Shakhdam said.

An­oth­er is Ja­mal al-Taw­il, a promi­nent Hamas politi­cian, whose last re­port­ed ar­rest was in 2021 over al­leged ef­forts to en­trench Hamas’ lead­er­ship in the West Bank. He was trans­ferred to ad­min­is­tra­tive de­ten­tion, a re­new­able six-month pe­ri­od in which sus­pects are held with­out charge or tri­al.

War could re­sume in March with­out a deal

The war — the dead­liest and most de­struc­tive fight­ing ever be­tween Is­rael and Hamas — could re­sume in ear­ly March if no agree­ment is reached.

Is­rael says it is com­mit­ted to de­stroy­ing Hamas, which re­assert­ed its rule over Gaza with­in hours of the cease­fire. Hamas says it won’t re­lease re­main­ing hostages with­out an end to the war and a full Is­raeli with­draw­al.

In the Oct. 7 at­tack, about 1,200 peo­ple, most­ly civil­ians, were killed. More than 47,000 Pales­tini­ans have been killed in Is­rael’s re­tal­ia­to­ry war, over half women and chil­dren, ac­cord­ing to Gaza’s Health Min­istry, which does not say how many were mil­i­tants.

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary says it killed more than 17,000 fight­ers, with­out pro­vid­ing ev­i­dence. It blames civil­ian deaths on Hamas for op­er­at­ing in res­i­den­tial neigh­bour­hoods.

Gold­en­berg re­port­ed from Tel Aviv, Is­rael. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writer Is­abel De­bre in Ra­mal­lah, West Bank, con­tributed to this re­port.

DEIR AL-BAL­AH, Gaza Strip (AP) —