Hostages Tal Shoham, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert, Eliya Cohen, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed were released from Hamas captivity and returned to Israel on Saturday, in the largest single day of releases since the current hostage-ceasefire deal took effect. They are believed to be the final living hostages scheduled for release in the current first phase of the deal, with only four more hostages, all believed to be dead, set for release on Thursday.
The terror group paraded five of the six freed hostages on stages in propaganda-filled ceremonies in two locations in Gaza, handing them over to the Red Cross, while al-Sayed was released separately to the humanitarian organization later in the day, without a ceremony.
The men all looked frail and many had noticeably suffered dramatic weight loss.
Shoham, Shem Tov, Wenkert and Cohen were all taken captive on October 7, 2023 during the Hamas-led attacks and massacres, and had been held as hostages in Gaza for over 500 days.
Mengistu and al-Sayed both entered Gaza on their own accord in 2014 and 2015, respectively, and had been held captive by terror groups in Gaza for around a decade each.
The releases came hours after Hamas finally returned the body of Shiri Bibas; Israel said she had been brutally murdered by her captors along with her two small sons, Ariel, 4, and baby Kfir, whose bodies were returned on Thursday.
The first of three handovers took place on Saturday morning in Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip, during which the terror group handed Shoham and Mengistu over to the Red Cross after parading the two on a stage decorated with a propaganda poster featuring images of terror leaders and Lt. Hadar Goldin, who was killed in 2014 and whose body is held by Hamas.
There was also a display of weapons Hamas said had been taken from Israel on October 7.
Shoham and Mengistu were then taken by the Red Cross to Israeli forces inside Gaza, who escorted them to an IDF facility inside Israel, near the border.
After brief medical checks and reunions with family members, the two men were taken via helicopter to hospitals in central Israel.
Later in the morning, at a second Hamas ceremony in central Gaza’s Nuseirat, Shem Tov, Wenkert and Cohen were paraded on stage holding certificates and gift bags, and wearing approximations of IDF uniforms as if they were soldiers.
The three civilians were kidnapped from the Nova music festival, and are not active members of the military. Hamas considers Israeli men under 50 to be soldiers.
It appeared that Cohen was made to wave by the gunmen flanking him, while Shem Tov seemed to be directed by a Hamas cameraman to also kiss two of the masked gunmen on their heads.
They, too, were taken by the Red Cross to Israeli troops before they were brought to the IDF facility near Re’im for medical checks and emotional reunions with close family members before they were transported to hospitals.
Later on Saturday afternoon, the Red Cross notified the IDF that Hamas had handed over the sixth hostage, Hisham al-Sayed.
He was released by the terror group without a ceremony, which Hamas said was out of “respect” for the Arab community in Israel, despite having held him for nearly a decade, as well as murdering and abducting several Arab Israelis during the October 7, 2023, onslaught.
Al-Sayed was then handed over to Israeli forces inside Gaza.
Avera Mengistu, 37, spent 3,821 days in captivity before his release.
Mengistu, who suffers from mental illness, crossed into northern Gaza from the beach at Zikim in September 2014.
The then-28-year-old was spotted by IDF security cameras but made it through the fence before troops could reach the scene. He was picked up by a Hamas patrol and was not heard from until the terror group released a video of him in early 2023.
Mengistu’s family has struggled over the years to rally public support or pressure the government to negotiate his release, with some relatives alleging racism.
Reports following the October 7, 2023, massacre indicated that one of the ways Hamas lulled Israel into complacency ahead of the onslaught was by feigning serious interest in a deal for Mengistu and al-Sayed.
Tal Shoham, 39, a dual Israeli-Austrian citizen from the northern town of Maale Tzviya, was taken hostage by Hamas terrorists on October 7 while visiting his wife’s family on Kibbutz Be’eri for the Simhat Torah holiday.
His wife, Adi Shoham, his daughter, Yahel, 3, and son, Naveh, 8, as well as his mother-in-law Shoshan Haran, his wife’s aunt Sharon Avigdori and her daughter Noam, 12, were also taken hostage, but released in November 25, 2023.
His father-in-law Avshalom Haran was killed during the attack, as were his wife’s aunt and uncle Eviatar and Lilach Kipnis, who lived next door in Be’eri.
The extended family had been hiding in the Haran family home but were forced to flee after Hamas terrorists set it on fire.
There had been no sign of life from him ahead of his release. It was not known if he was aware his wife and children had also been taken hostage, or that they had survived.
Eliya Cohen, 27, was with his fiancé, Ziv Aboud, at the Nova desert rave when Hamas gunmen attacked.
The two tried to escape but were chased by terrorists and both were shot.
They sought safety at a roadside bomb shelter, but it was attacked by terrorists and Aboud later said she felt Cohen being pulled up and then placed on a pickup truck and driven away. He was taken along with Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Or Levy and Alon Ohel.
Earlier this month, the family said they heard from recently released captives that Cohen has been chained up throughout his time in captivity and gets very little food or daylight.
A bullet wound in his leg has yet to be properly treated, the freed hostages said.
Omer Wenkert, 23, was also taken captive by Hamas terrorists at the Nova festival on October 7.
He was in touch with his parents that morning, telling them he was “scared to death.” Their last communication with him was at 7:50 a.m.
They later saw a Hamas video of Omer, tied up on the flatbed of a white pickup truck, in his underwear, confirming that he had been taken hostage in Gaza.
Omer Shem Tov, 22, from Herzliya was at the Nova festival with his friends Itay and Maya Regev, who were also taken hostage but were freed in November 2023.
He last spoke to his parents around 10 a.m. on October 7, as he sounded increasingly panicked about what was happening around him while Hamas terrorists shot hundreds and abducted dozens.
After getting into a friend’s car, he sent his family his live location, but they eventually noticed that it was headed toward Gaza, and contact with him was lost.
Hisham Al-Sayed, a 37-year-old Bedouin Israeli from the village of Hura in the Negev desert, entered the Strip near the Erez Crossing in April 2015.
Like Mengistu, al-Sayed suffers from mental illness.
According to his father, this was not his first time going into Gaza, but in this case, he was stopped by Hamas and taken into its custody.
By the time he was released on Saturday, he spent nearly 3,600 days in the hands of the terror group.
According to Human Rights Watch, in the years prior to his entering Gaza, al-Sayed was “diagnosed with schizophrenia and a personality disorder, among other conditions” and was repeatedly institutionalized.
Al-Sayed was not heard from until 2022, when Hamas released a video showing him looking sick and depleted in a bed and hooked up to an oxygen tank.
In a statement Tuesday, al-Sayed’s family said they had been waiting for him for a decade, and added that their happiness would not be complete until all hostages returned home.
“It cannot be that the fate of other hostages will be a decade in captivity,” they said.
The six hostages released Saturday were the final living hostages slated for release under phase one of the deal. The last four phase one hostages are set to be freed on Thursday.
Of the four, only one has been confirmed by Israel as dead, Shlomo Mantzur, but it is believed that the other three, Ohad Yahalomi, Itzik Elgarat and Tsahi Idan were also killed.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 63 hostages, including 62 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 36 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas has so far released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers, and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of four slain Israeli captives — Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, and Oded Lifshitz — during a ceasefire that began in January. The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war.
Eight hostages have been rescued from captivity by troops alive, and the bodies of 41 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors, and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014.
The body of another soldier killed in 2014, Lt. Hadar Goldin, is still being held by Hamas, and is counted among the 63 hostages.