Well-rehearsed ceremony
At both locations the militants prepared for a now well-rehearsed ceremony, building stages in front of large posters advertising the militants’ cause or praising fallen fighters.
The Red Cross has repeatedly appealed for handovers to take place in a dignified manner.
Under a cold winter rain in Rafah, Hamas staged a show of force after months of bombardment and strikes that killed the group’s top leaders. Some fighters held automatic weapons, others rocket launchers, as nationalistic Palestinian music blared.
Hamas’s green flag flew around the square on buildings destroyed by the war.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said Israel would free 602 inmates on Saturday as part of the exchange.
A spokeswoman for the NGO told AFP that most were Gazans arrested after the war began. She added that some of the prisoners would be deported outside of Israel and the Palestinian territories after their release.
Those expected to be expelled were serving heavy sentences.
The ceasefire has so far seen 21 living Israeli hostages freed from Gaza in exchange for more than 1,100 Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli jails.
Saturday’s release of living hostages followed the first transfer on Thursday of hostages’ bodies.
Hamas had said Shiri Bibas’s remains were among the four bodies returned on Thursday, but Israeli analysis concluded they were not in fact hers, sparking an outpouring of grief and anger.
Hamas then admitted “the possibility of an error or mix-up of bodies”, which it attributed to Israeli bombing of the area.
Late Friday the Red Cross confirmed the transfer of more human remains to Israel “at the request of both parties” but did not say whose they were.
“After the identification process at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, this morning we received the news we feared the most. Our Shiri was murdered in captivity and has now returned home to her sons, husband, sister, and all her family to rest,” the Bibas family said in a statement.
On Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — under domestic pressure over his handling of the war and the hostages — vowed to “ensure that Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and evil violation of the agreement”.
