Hamas official says no public ceremony for handover of bodies

GAZA CITY: A senior Hamas official told AFP that the Palestinian movement will not hold a public ceremony for the handover of the bodies of four Israeli hostages on Thursday.

“The handover will take place without public presence to prevent the occupation from finding any pretext for delay or obstruction,” the official said on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to discuss the matter.

Since the first stage of the ceasefire took effect last month, Hamas has handed over 25 hostages alive in public ceremonies at various locations in Gaza, drawing widespread condemnation, including from the United Nations.

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It also handed over the bodies of four hostages, after first displaying the coffins on stage in front of a large crowd.

However, after Saturday’s handover of six living hostages, Israel suspended the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, insisting it would free them only after Hamas halted these “humiliating ceremonies.”

Earlier on Wednesday, two Hamas officials said the militants would hand over the four bodies on Thursday in exchange for more than 600 Palestinian prisoners.

Last week, a crowd cheered as masked militants brought two pale and dazed Israeli captives onto a rainy stage in front of cameras for the seventh hostage-prisoner exchange of the Gaza ceasefire.

Around the stage, Hamas fighters stood in an orderly fashion in the southern Gazan city of Rafah as the pair were handed over to the Red Cross, with Avera Mengistu, one of the two freed men, walking with apparent difficulty.

Like the hostages at previous liberations, Tal Shoham and Mengistu were handed liberation certificates in Hebrew before being helped into vehicles from the Red Cross, which acts as an intermediary, an AFP journalist reported.