Posted on 02/21/25
| News Source: Times of Israel
Tel Aviv, Israel - Feb. 21, 2025 - Israel confirmed Tuesday that the final six living hostages slated for release under phase one of a ceasefire deal would all be freed on Saturday, after the Hamas terror group announced that it would expedite the handovers.
The six include Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who have been held by Hamas since entering the Strip on their own in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
The other four, all of whom were taken on October 7, 2023, include father Tal Shoham and three young men kidnapped from the Nova music festival: Omer Shem-Tov, Omer Wenkert and Eliya Cohen.
Hamas is also slated to release the bodies of eight slain hostages over the next two weeks.
Families of all six living hostages confirmed that they were on the list of captives slated for release.
“I see Omer’s name on TV and I don’t believe it,” Shem-Tov’s mother Shelly said after receiving word, according to Channel 12 news. “Now I can say that we can breathe, and I’m just waiting to hug my Omer.”
Mengistu will have spent 3,821 days in captivity by the time he is released on Saturday, according to the Hostage Families Forum.
According to his family and Israeli officials, Mengistu crossed into northern Gaza from the beach at Zikim in September 2014.
The then-28-year-old was spotted by IDF security cameras, but made it through the fence before troops could reach the scene. He was picked up by a Hamas patrol and was not heard from until the terror group released a video purporting to show him alive in early 2023.
Mengistu hails from Ashkelon’s working-class Ethiopian-Israeli community. According to his family, he suffered from mental illness, and was given an exemption from military service.
Mengistu’s family has struggled over the years to rally public support or pressure the government to negotiate his release, with some relatives alleging racism and contrasting his plight with that of soldier Gilad Shalit, a cause celebre who was freed in 2011 in exchange for over 1,000 Palestinian inmates.
“We know that he is alive and in a bad mental and physical condition,” a relative told a Tel Aviv rally in August. “He’s been there not for a month or a year but for 10 years.”
Reports following the October 7, 2023, massacre indicated that Hamas lulled Israel into complacency by feigning serious interest in a deal for Mengistu and al-Sayed.
Al-Sayed, a 28-year-old Bedouin Israeli from the village of Hura in the Negev desert, entered the Strip near the Erez Crossing in April 2015.
According to his father, this was not his first time going into Gaza, but in this case he was stopped by Hamas and taken into its custody.
By the time he is released on Saturday, he will have spent nearly 3,600 days in the hands of the terror group.
Like Mengistu, al-Sayed suffered from mental illness, though he briefly served in the military before being discharged.
According to Human Rights Watch, in the years prior to his entering Gaza, al-Sayed was “diagnosed with schizophrenia and a personality disorder, among other conditions” and was repeatedly institutionalized. In one instance, he escaped a hospital and nearly made it inside Gaza before being stopped, according to the group, which examined his medical records.
Al-Sayed was not heard from until 2022, when Hamas released a video showing him looking sick and depleted in a bed and hooked up to an oxygen tank.
In a statement Tuesday, al-Sayed’s family said they had been waiting for him for a decade, and added that their happiness would not be complete until all hostages returned home.
“It cannot be that the fate of other hostages will be a decade in captivity,” they said.
Tal Shoham, a dual Israeli-Austrian citizen from the northern town of Maale Tzviya, was taken hostage by Hamas terrorists on October 7 while visiting his wife’s family on Kibbutz Be’eri for the Simchat Torah holiday.
His wife, Adi Shoham, his daughter, Yahel, 3, and son, Naveh, 8, as well as his mother-in-law Shoshan Haran, his wife’s aunt Sharon Avigdori and her daughter Noam, 12, were also taken hostage, but released on November 25, 2023.
His father-in-law Avshalom Haran was killed during the attack, as were his wife’s aunt and uncle Eviatar and Lilach Kipnis, who lived next door in Be’eri.
According to Shoham’s father, Gilad Korngold, the extended family had been hiding in the Haran family home but were forced to flee after Hamas terrorists set it on fire.
According to Korngold, a person on Kibbutz Be’eri saw Shoham in restraints but walking on his own feet before being shoved into the trunk of a stolen car by his captors.
Little is known about his condition.
Adi Shoham said last year that she had been collecting questions asked by their two kids in his absence, including “When is dad coming home?” and “Mom, are we going to die?”
Eliya Cohen was with his fiancé, Ziv Aboud, at the Nova desert rave when Hamas gunmen attacked, said his mother, Sigi Cohen.
The two tried to escape but were chased by terrorists and both shot.
They attempted to hide among a pile of dead bodies in a bomb shelter, but Aboud, who escaped, told Cohen’s mother that she felt him being pulled up and then placed on a pickup truck and driven away.
It was later discovered that Cohen was in the same vehicle with hostages Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Or Levy and Alon Ohel, who were also abducted from the shelter.
The family eventually found a photo showing Cohen in Gaza.
Earlier this month, the family said they heard from recently released captives that Cohen has been chained throughout his time in captivity and gets very little food or daylight.
A bullet wound in his leg has yet to be properly treated, according to the accounts, which were relayed by Sigi Cohen to Hebrew language media.
Omer Wenkert was also taken captive by Hamas terrorists at the Nova festival on October 7.
He was in touch with his parents that morning, telling them he was “scared to death.” Their last communication with him was at 7:50 a.m.
They were later sent a Hamas video of Omer, tied up on the flatbed of a white pickup truck, in his underwear, confirming that he had been taken hostage in Gaza.
Wenkert suffers from colitis and can have very dramatic attacks, said his parents in a video posted on the website that was put together about him.
In October, Wenkert’s mother Niva told Hebrew language media that they had not received any sign of life from him since the release of hostage Liam Or, who had been held with him, in November 2023.
At the time, Wenkert was described as dangerously underweight, with almost no attention paid to his medical needs.
“His diet was three dates a day. Dates may be quite healthy, but for Omer they can be fatal,” she said. “Dates have dietary fiber and colitis sufferers cannot consume dietary fiber.”
The Gedera resident was described as vibrant and social with a wide circle of friends. He works as a restaurant manager and plans to become a restaurant critic.
Omer Shem-Tov last spoke to his parents around 10 a.m. on October 7, as he sounded increasingly panicked about what was happening around him while Hamas terrorists shot hundreds and abducted dozens at the Nova rave.
After getting into a friend’s car, he sent his family his live location, but they eventually noticed that it was headed toward Gaza, and contact with him was lost.
They later saw a Hamas video that had been posted on Telegram showing Shem-Tov and his friend lying on a floor in Gaza.
They were able to identify Omer from his tattoos, said his mother.
Little is known about the condition of the computer programmer.