Israel releases 183 Palestinians after 3 captives freed in Gaza

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem released the following statement after the prisoner exchange:

• Today we are facing a new milestone in the achievements of the Palestinian people in forcing the occupation to continue the release of the heroic prisoners and breaking the red lines they set for themselves.
• ⁠The delivery today carries a clear message from the Qassam Brigades that the people and the resistance are the ones who draw the contours of the day after the aggression and not any external force.
• ⁠Qassam Brigades has proven the martyrdom of their leaders increases their insistence on achieving their goals, continuing their cohesion, and surrounding the masses around them, as is happening today in the central region of the Gaza Strip.
• ⁠Today revealed the illusion that Netanyahu was going for achieving what he called absolute victory over our people and resisting them.
• ⁠The masses of our people continue to embrace the resistance and its sons to prove the failure of all attempts by the criminal Zionist occupation to separate it from them.
  

  Palestine, Egypt decry Israeli PM’s proposal to establish Palestinian state in Saudi Arabia

  Palestine and Egypt have strongly denounced a proposal by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to establish a Palestinian state in Saudi Arabia, considering the call a violation of the Kingdom’s sovereignty.

  In a statement, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry called Netanyahu’s proposal “racist and anti-peace,” and “an infringement on Saudi Arabia’s sovereignty and stability”.

  Meanwhile, Hussein Al-Sheikh, secretary-general of the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said that the Israeli statements targeted the Saudi sovereignty, calling Netanyahu’s comments “a violation of international law and international conventions.”

  “The State of Palestine will only be on the land of Palestine,” he added on his X account.

  Egypt also decried Netanyahu’s comments as “irresponsible and entirely rejected”.

  A Foreign Ministry statement said that the Israeli statements “directly infringe on Saudi sovereignty and flagrantly violate international law and the United Nations Charter”.

  Gaza at risk from ‘mind-boggling’ amount of unexploded ordnance, aid group warns

  Unexploded bombs and shells buried in the ruins of Gaza could kill or injure thousands of people in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory in the future, an aid organisation has warned.

  The volume of ordnance dropped by Israel on Gaza during 15 months of conflict was “mind-boggling”, said Simon Elmont, a de-mining expert with Handicap International – Humanity & Inclusion.

  “The amount of ordnance that has been fired is an enormous quantity,” Elmont told the AFP news agency, adding that between nine and 13 percent of munitions fail to explode on initial impact.

  “It is going to be tens of thousands of unexploded ordnance, that’s for sure,” he added.

  He said that the contamination level in Gaza was massive, and much of the ordnance “lies mainly within the rubble and underneath the surface of Gaza”.

  Red Cross calls for next captive swap to be held ‘in private’

  The International Committee of the Red Cross, which is facilitating ongoing prisoner exchanges between Israel and Hamas under the Gaza ceasefire deal, called for future swaps to be held “in private”.

  “The ICRC is increasingly concerned about the conditions surrounding release operations. We strongly urge all parties, including the mediators, to take responsibility to ensure that future releases are dignified and private,” the ICRC said in a statement after it completed the fifth exchange on Saturday.

  Israeli officials have criticised the captive “handover ceremonies”. Before a crowd of hundreds of people on Saturday, Hamas fighters pointed a microphone at each of the three Israeli men in turn and made them make a public statement, before handing them over to waiting Red Cross officials.

  Prime Minister Netanyahu ‘weaponised hunger’ in Gaza

  I would like to start with the absurd idea that Israelis are upset that the three captives have lost weight. It’s actually far more than absurd, far more than cynical. It’s the ultimate hutzpah, as the Israelis like to refer to it.

  Netanyahu, who is unhappy, is sought after by the International Criminal Court for weaponising hunger in Gaza. He’s accused of crimes against humanity for instilling famine in Gaza, using hunger as a weapon of war.

  That man is complaining the three Israelis held there lost weight when countless Palestinians have died of starvation? Countless children have died of malnutrition? And he’s the one responsible for all of that.

  The other thing is the degree of testimony of Palestinians released from Israeli prisons. I doubt it’s going to be heard throughout the Western world, but Israeli prisons have long turned into torture chambers.

  Netanyahu ‘already looking to re-litigate’ the ceasefire agreement

  Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli diplomat, told Al Jazeera that the mood in Israel today is mixed as “many people are elated and jubilant, but also fear that the next phase [of the ceasefire agreement] may not happen”.

  Pinkas pointed out that many people feel anger and resentment towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “choosing to stay at a fancy hotel suite in Washington, DC today”, instead of welcoming the captives home.

  “All he cares about right now is the relative stability of his coalition,” Pinkas said. “He accuses the entire world, including the families of the hostages, of trying to undermine him at a time of war. This is not the Netanyahu of savvy instincts of recent years.”

  He also said that Netanyahu is actively hostile about advancing the ceasefire agreement with Hamas and will try to use Donald Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza as an excuse to resume the war.

  “He’s already looking to re-litigate the agreement, saying the Israeli negotiating team was manipulated by Qatar, Egypt and even the Biden administration,” he said.

  “He will insert new stipulations [into the ceasefire deal] and then try and collapse it somehow. If that doesn’t work, he will try and initiate more friction in the West Bank and transfer that over into Gaza.”

  Former Palestinian prisoner likens Israeli jails to ‘inhumane entities’

  Hadeel Shatara, a former Palestinian prisoner released in the first prisoner exchange on January 20, says Palestinian prisoners are mistreated and brutalised in Israeli jails.

  “They turned these prisons into big brutal inhumane entities,” Shatara, who was in a Haifa prison for seven months, told Al Jazeera.

  “We were really mistreated. All the other prisoners released in the next exchange shared similar experiences. We women prisoners were dragged by our hair.”

  She added the “brutality” faced by her and Palestinian prisoners left them uncertain about their fate, until they were reunited with their families.

  Shatara said she hopes the ceasefire continues and that Gaza is rebuilt. “We want people in Gaza to live in peace and for the whole world to stand with Gaza.”

  ‘These captives could have been home looking much, much better’

  Israeli political commentator Ori Goldberg says despite the “vigorous denial” by Prime Minister Netanyahu and the majority of Israeli society, the poor physical condition of the three freed captives is a direct result of the punishing 15-month war on Gaza.

  “It’s very obvious the condition of the Israeli prisoners released has much to do with the situation in Gaza, which is to a major extent Israel’s responsibility,” Goldberg told Al Jazeera.

  “The more you hear expressions of outrage over Hamas’s ‘horrific’ treatment of the prisoners, it gets more and more clear that Israelis are fully aware that had Israel not insisted on applying ‘military pressure’ for so many months, these captives and any others could have been home looking much, much better.”

  He said most Israelis don’t see the release of 183 Palestinian prisoners as capitulation, but instead it “reinforces their sense of superiority”.

  “One-hundred and eighty-three Palestinian prisoners are easily worth three of ours. You also have to remember the general dehumanisation of Palestinians in Israeli society. Israelis don’t care. Palestinians do not exist as full-sized human beings.”