During the seventh hostage-prisoner exchange of the Gaza ceasefire on Saturday, a crowd applauded as masked militants led two pale and stunned Israeli detainees onto a wet stage in front of cameras.
In the southern Gazan city of Rafah, Hamas fighters stood in a disciplined manner around the stage as the two men were turned over to the Red Cross. One of the two men who were released, Avera Mengistu, appeared to have trouble walking.
According to an AFP correspondent, Tal Shoham and Mengistu received Hebrew-language release certificates, just like the hostages at earlier liberations, before being assisted into vehicles by the Red Cross, which serves as a middleman.
The Palestinian Islamist movement intended to free the last four hostages from the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza later this morning, a Hamas source told AFP.
The terrorist organization had built stages to parade the hostages to be released in front of giant banners and billboards promoting its cause or honoring slain militants in Rafah and Nuseirat in preparation for a now-practiced ceremony.
To keep the throng out, Hamas gunmen from the Al-Qassam Bridages, the group’s military wing, positioned in a cordon around the handover place in Rafah. They were dressed in green headbands, balaclavas, and fatigues.
While the green flag of Hamas flew across the plaza atop buildings damaged by the conflict in Palestinian territory, others brandished hand-held rocket launchers and others carried Kalashnikov assault guns in a show of power.
“We say and continue to say that we are with the resistance, we are with the valiant Brigades, we are with the fighters,” Fidaa Awda, a Rafah resident who attended the ceremony, told AFP.
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