Israeli prisoner kissed Hamas fighters in Gaza. Now Israel is refusing to release Palestinian hostages

Israel didn't release any of the over 600 Palestinian hostages it was obligated to set free this weekend.

Israeli prisoner of war Omer Shem Tov kisses the forehead of a Hamas fighter during his handover ceremony in Gaza on February 22.

It doesn’t get more petulant than this.

The Palestinian resistance has stuck to all the terms of the ceasefire deal with Israel so far and has been releasing Israeli prisoners of war in batches in exchange for its own hostages in Israeli dungeons, just as the deal stipulates. As it had announced earlier this week, the Palestinian resistance released the seventh batch of six Israelis on Saturday but the Zionist state has refused to release the 600 plus captives it was supposed to set free this weekend. Israel has “delayed” their freedom “until the release of the next hostages has been assured, and without the humiliating ceremonies”, according to a statement released by Netanyahu’s office late Saturday night.

Notably, the only time Hamas didn’t guarantee the release of the Zionist prisoners was part of an effort to force the Jewish state into compliance with the terms of the deal and allow the promised aid into the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian resistance continues to abide by all the terms of the deal. What Netanyahu’s office calls “humiliating ceremonies” is an admission that Israel has been rattled by Hamas’s show of strength during prisoner handovers and that it has been caught off guard by the Zionist prisoners’ open display of affection for their captors at a time when it is desperately trying to vilify the resistance with a fresh set of atrocity porn to rival the lurid tales it propagated in the aftermath of October 7.

Izzat Al-Rishq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, termed the occupation’s latest stunt a “flimsy excuse” to evade its obligations, “The occupation’s claim that the ‘handover ceremonies are humiliating’ is a false pretext and a flimsy excuse aimed at evading its obligations under the agreement.” He added that the Israelis are reneging on their commitments made in the deal: “Netanyahu’s decision reflects a deliberate attempt to obstruct the agreement, constituting a clear violation of its terms and demonstrating the occupation’s unreliability in fulfilling its commitments.”

In another game of psychological warfare against Palestinians, over 600 hostages had already boarded buses to leave the Ofer prison for freedom before the Israelis told them to disembark and took them back to their dungeons. Families kept waiting for their loved ones late into the night only to endure another night of separation from them. There’s no telling when the latest Israeli stunt will come to an end.

All the Zionist prisoners released by the Palestinian resistance have spoken about the good treatment they received in Gaza despite the constant threat of Israeli warplanes hovering over their heads during their 15 months in captivity. An 80-year-old Israeli prisoner was abused by his compatriots after saying nice things about his Hamas captors. Another Zionist prisoner left his captors a heartfelt letter before his release. One female prisoner couldn’t stop smiling at one of his captives. In the latest prisoner handover on Saturday, one Israeli kissed two Hamas fighters on their forehead.

These displays of affection for their captives doesn’t suit the Israeli agenda as they serve to humanise the Palestinians. The Zionist state has been on a decades-long mission to paint the natives of Palestine as inhuman savages who must be eradicated from the face of the earth — a mission it has undertaken diligently for nearly a century and put on steroids since October 7.

Keeping with the same ethos, the Israelis have treated the Palestinian hostages — thousands of whom rot in their dungeons — worse than cattle. Those released as part of the ongoing prisoner exchange have told stories of being beaten black and blue as the day of their freedom came near. They are often released with their hands bound and eyes blindfolded. Many of those released have had to be immediately rushed to the hospital due to their poor health. They carry marks of horrific abuse on their emaciated, fragile bodies. All of them have been forced to wear wristbands and sweatshirts with humiliating Biblical threats.

Badly infected leg of a Palestinian hostage in Israeli dungeons.

Feet of a released Palestinian captive.

Palestinian prisoner Mohammad Al-Sabah’s emaciated body afflicted with scabies.

Israel forced the Palestinian hostages to wear sweatshirts with the Star of David and the words “We don’t forger, we don’t forgive” before their release.

Not just the hostages, the Zionist state harasses and intimidates the families of those to be released. They barge into their homes, ransack their belongings, break their furniture, and warn them against celebrations when their loved ones come home. Palestinians are forbidden from expressions of joy at the sight of their family members they haven’t seen in years and decades. Their dehumanisation is extreme.

Despite these egregious violations of the rights of their compatriots, the Palestinian resistance has continued to treat its prisoners of war with dignity and respect — values that it says comes from the teachings of Islam.

Courtesy of the barbarism they have unleashed upon Palestinians since October 7, the Israelis have seen the complete erosion of the legitimacy they had so carefully and forcefully crafted for their illegitimate state since its violent formation on stolen Palestinian lands and on the corpses of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children in 1948. As their plethora of lies have been systematically debunked over these past 16 months, they fear completely losing the grip on the narratives that they had so tightly controlled until very recently. Outside of the algorithmically-inflated Zionist bubble, no one is buying Israel’s latest atrocity porn about Hamas killing Israeli babies with “bare hands” — not even the father of the dead babies.

So they are going mad.

In this milieu, it appears to be the Zionist prisoner’s kiss that broke the proverbial camel’s back.

Hamas, despite enduring a brutal 15 months of genocidal war, remains as strong as ever, and putting up a weekly show of defiance and power during the prisoner exchanges. The Israeli captives appear to have no complaints against their captors. They smile at them, write them thank you notes, and kiss them goodbye. It is no wonder, then, that the Zionist state feels humiliated. It is just laying the blame on something else to hide its eternal shame.

Meanwhile, the long-suffering families of the Palestinian hostages — some of whom have spent decades in the Zionist dungeons — who were due to be released this weekend, will have to wait some more. “The Israeli occupation, until this moment, refuses to release the seventh batch of prisoners, and continues to deliberately delay, while practicing state-terrorism against the prisoners and their families,” the Commission of Detainees Affairs and Palestinian Prisoners Society said in a statement late Sunday night. “In light of the available information, we note that there will be no releases today.”

Still holding keys to their ancestral homes stolen by the Zionists over seven decades ago, patience is one virtue no one can beat Palestinians at.

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