Released hostage, Ohad Ben Ami, who was seized during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, embraces a loved one as he is reunited with his family at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Israel, in this handout image obtained by Reuters on February 8, 2025. Photo: Haim Zach/GPO/Handout via REUTERS

In a grotesque editorial in its official paper, the Palestinian Authority (PA) wrote last week that Hamas is releasing the Israeli hostages after almost a year and a half “in good health” and “without dust on their clothes, as if they had been in vacation resorts.”

The PA even stated that Hamas “did not protect only their lives but also their welfare,” releasing them “with gifts”:

PA editorial: “They [Hamas] handed over the hostages with gifts and in good health! … completely committed to the agreement, with the release of [Israeli] hostages without dust on their clothes, as if they had been in vacation resorts! They [Hamas] did not protect only their lives but also their welfare.” [emphasis added]

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 2, 2025]

The photos of the three male hostages Or Levy, Eli Sharabi, and Ohad Ben Ami, who were released on Saturday, prove how odious the PA’s distorted claim is.

The Israeli hostages were starved, tortured, and kept in the dark for almost the entire period of their captivity. The appearances of Levy, Sharabi, and Ben Ami resemble those of Holocaust survivors emerging from the Nazi death camps in 1945.

Indeed, Israeli medical sources who treated the three told the press that “their condition is no different than people who spent a year in a concentration camp,” according to YNet News. Other released hostages have revealed the severe physical, psychological, and sexual abuse they suffered from the Hamas terrorists and Gazan civilians who held them captive.

Palestinian Media Watch has exposed the PA Foreign Ministry’s ridicule of Israel, which it said “whines about 100 hostages.”

The following is a longer excerpt of the PA’s editorial:

The Israeli hostages in the hands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, when they were handed over [to the Red Cross] while they were most neatly dressed, became through populist demonstrations a kind of message from Hamas to Israel. The message is that [the Hamas members] have reached a state of logical thinking, obedience, and good behavior, as they handed over the hostages with gifts and in good health! …

More than 50,000 female and male Martyrs and more than 100,000 wounded — and the result is an agreement of performances for [internal] consumption and messages that confirm to Israel: We are completely committed to the agreement, with the release of hostages without dust on their clothes, as if they had been in vacation resorts!

They [Hamas] did not protect only their lives but also their welfare, but they forgot and neglected protecting the lives of the Gaza Strip residents, whose lives and homes have been crushed by Israeli fighter jets for 15 months! They, who cover themselves with a religious guise, forgot and ignored the fact that one of the goals of Islamic law is to protect life, mind, and property.

Was it not possible to hand over these hostages in the first week of Israel’s war against the Gaza Strip, after it became clear that it is a highly aggressive and wild war?

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 2, 2025]

The author is a senior analyst at Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article was originally published.