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Hamas and Israel Complete Fifth Hostage-Prisoner Exchange
Above: Palestinian Hamas fighters stand on stage holding weapons beside three Israeli hostages in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, on Feb. 8, 2025, before handing them over to the Red Cross as part of a prisoner exchange. Image copyright: Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images
The Facts
Hamas and Israel on Saturday carried out the fifth hostage-for-prisoner swap under the Gaza cease-fire that has been in effect since Jan. 19, with three Israeli hostages released in exchange for 183 Palestinian prisoners.
The trio of Israelis — Ohad Ben Ami, Eli Sharabi, and Or Levy — were paraded on a makeshift stage and delivered speeches in Hebrew in central Gaza's Deir al-Balah before they were handed over to the Red Cross. All three appeared in a frail state of health.
Ben Ami and Sharabi were abducted from Kibbutz Beeri, while Levy was captured from the Supernova music festival. Sharabi's wife and daughters and Levy's wife were killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, while Sharabi's brother died in captivity, and Ben Ami's wife was freed in November 2023.
The Spin
Pro-Israel narrative
Three Israelis returned home on Saturday, but the expected celebrations gave way to shock and horror as images of the emaciated trio reached public eyes. Hamas is a brutal and barbaric terrorist group that uses human lives as bargaining chips while playing the victim card, and mainstream media keeps falling for their propaganda.
Pro-Palestine narrative
Attempts by Israel to distort facts and mislead the global narrative are abhorrent. If the frailty of Israeli prisoners is evidence of Hamas brutality, then Israel is even worse. After all, Palestinian prisoners — many of them subjected to illegal incarceration — have been mistreated and their families subjected to systematic terror.
Pro-establishment narrative
That Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners were in apparent poor health — and that both sides have claimed each other has violated terms of the cease-fire — must not affect negotiations to extend the agreement, quite the contrary. Hostage-for-prisoners swaps have proven to be the right path to achieve the release of all hostages and deescalate tensions.
Metaculus Prediction
The Controversies
Go Deeper
Establishment split
CRITICAL
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