Chilling moment Israeli hostages of women and children are forced to say goodbye to Hamas captors for propaganda… ‘with one terrorist ordering to ‘keep waving’ if released’

The ominous moment Hamas gunmen apparently growled “keep waving” as they handed Israeli hostages to Red Cross workers this weekend has sparked outrage among Israeli officials who decried the Palestinian group’s “propaganda.”

Images released by official Hamas channels and distributed by Reuters showed a group of hostages being led to Red Cross trucks to take them across the border and back to safety.

At first it looked exactly like one of the many handover clips published by the Palestinian group that yesterday negotiated an additional two-day ceasefire pending the release of more hostages in order to deter further Israeli army bombardments to turn.

But wAlthough Hamas wants to project an image of humane treatment, one of the masked militants, brandishing an automatic rifle, menacingly says “keep waving” as his charges pile into the back of a van.

Israeli government spokesman Ofir Gendelman said in a post on X: “Hamas’ disgusting staged propaganda.” They forced the released Israeli hostages to smile and wave at the cameras.

“You hear the terrorist say in a threatening voice: ‘keep waving’.”

Despite many hostages returning relatively physically unharmed, most have experienced weight loss and described difficult conditions in captivity, and several Hamas-transferred children have been separated from their parents, who have either been killed or remained in captivity.

One inmate, 84-year-old Elma Avraham, was released in serious condition and is now fighting for her life due to a lack of essential medicine during her 50-day ordeal, while another 21-year-old, Maya Regev, was released. came back Sunday evening with a gunshot wound.

Several clips released by Hamas show the moment the hostages were handed over

In this clip, the masked Hamas militant appears to say ‘keep waving’

The heartbreaking moment Maya was reunited with her family was also captured in bittersweet images this weekend.

Maya was one of 58 hostages released by Hamas over the past four days of the ceasefire between the Israeli army and the Palestinian group.

She was kidnapped from the Nova music festival – where 364 people were killed as Hamas gunmen poured across the border on motorcycles, trucks and paragliders – but not before she took a stray bullet.

Despite her injuries, Maya managed to cling to life and spent some 50 days languishing in captivity ahead of her eventual release on Saturday evening, with harrowing photos showing her being pulled and escorted from a Red Cross van by masked Hamas militants as she shuffled. about on crutches.

In the clip, Maya can be heard sobbing as she hugged her family as she sat in her hospital bed, elated at the liberation and in the company of loved ones, but mourning her teenage brother Itay, 18, who remains in Hamas captivity.

Itay is one of several Hamas hostages that the terror group says it cannot locate.

While some hostages were held by Hamas officials, others were split up and taken away by civilian groups or armed gangs from Gaza, said Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, who led the effort to broker a ceasefire between the IDF and Hamas. .

As the IDF continues its operations in Gaza to attempt to locate and free the remaining hostages, Maya is scheduled to undergo surgery to repair the damage caused by the gunshot wound.

According to Soroka hospital staff, Dr. Shlomi Kodesh told Israel’s i24 News that her life was not in danger, but that surgery was necessary for Maya to make a full recovery.

A Hamas fighter and Red Cross medics help recently released Israeli hostage Maya Regev into a Red Cross vehicle in the Gaza Strip

Maya, an attendee at the Nova music festival, was shot and then kidnapped on October 7

Her reunion with relatives at Soroka Hospital in the Israeli city of Be’er-Sheva, captured in heartbreaking video footage, was bittersweet

Medical staff watch as Maya hugs her family members prior to surgery

Like Maya, several of the hostages released by Hamas this weekend are facing a dark new reality.

They have been granted their freedom, but are now burdened by the knowledge that other members of their family are still in captivity, or worse, were slaughtered on October 7.

Two of these recently released hostages are siblings Noam and Alma Or, 16 and 13 years old.

They were greeted on Saturday by happy grandparents and their older brother Yali, 18, before undergoing medical checks after their lengthy captivity.

But the teenagers’ elation at regaining their freedom quickly faded when they learned that their mother Yonat had been shot by Hamas attackers in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7.

Uncle Ahal Besorai, a British-Israeli lawyer, told the story The guard how the children were devastated when they heard their mother’s fate.

“Unfortunately, they didn’t know that my sister, their mother, had been murdered,” he said.

‘Suddenly they come to visit their loved ones for the first time in fifty days and the first news they are confronted with is that their mother is no longer alive. I think it was very traumatic, there were a lot of tears, a lot of pain.”

The youngest hostage released this weekend – four-year-old Israeli-American citizen Abigail Edan – also lost both her parents in the October 7 attacks.

“What she endured was unthinkable,” Biden said of the first American released under the truce. He did not know her condition and provided no updates on other American hostages.