PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES (AFP) – Hamas paraded five Israeli hostages, some looking dazed and others elated, before cheering crowds at two meticulously recorded ceremonies in the Gaza Strip on Saturday.

In the first well-rehearsed morning ceremony in Rafah, Hamas fighters stood in an orderly fashion as they handed over hostages Tal Shoham and Avera Mengistu, who walked with apparent difficulty, to the Red Cross.

As in previous hostage releases, the men were given certificates in Hebrew to mark the end of their captivity before being helped into vehicles from the Red Cross, which acts as an intermediary, an AFP journalist reported.

Hamas fighters from the group’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, wearing fatigues, balaclavas and green headbands, formed a cordon around the area to hold back the crowd of onlookers.

In a similarly choreographed ceremony later in Nuseirat, hostages Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov and Omer Wenkert took the stage with shaved heads, smiling at a cheering crowd of hundreds.

The trio stood briefly on stage alongside Hamas fighters, waving at the crowd while a camera drone and a photographer captured the moment.

– Display of strength –
Shem Tov, who was abducted on October 7 from the Nova music festival in southern Israel, waved and blew kisses to the crowd before kissing two of his Hamas captors on their keffiyeh-wrapped heads.

Israel’s military said later it had received a sixth Israeli hostage, Hisham al-Sayed, who was captured in Gaza a decade ago.

At both ceremonies, the Palestinian militants put on a display of strength.

In Rafah, some held Kalashnikov assault rifles and others flaunted hand-held rocket launchers, while Hamas’s green flag flew around the square on buildings destroyed by war in the Palestinian territory.