Freed arch-terrorist, convicted of killing 45, is guest at slain hostage handover in Gaza

A Palestinian terrorist responsible for killing dozens of Israelis who was released from prison just days ago was seen in media footage at the Hamas handover of bodies of four slain hostages Thursday.

Mohammed Abu Warda, a former commander in Hamas’s armed wing, was serving 48 life sentences in Israel for masterminding multiple terror attacks that killed 45 people, including a 1996 bombing on a Jerusalem bus that left 24 dead.

He was released by Israel on February 8 along with other terror convicts as part of the ongoing hostage-ceasefire deal with the Hamas terror group.

According to Hebrew media, Abu Warda was the prisoner with the highest number life sentences to be released so far during the truce. He served 23 years.

Though he was reportedly slated to be deported to Egypt, Abu Warda was seen Thursday morning at a Khan Younis stage where the terror group held a ceremony marking the transfer of what is said were the bodies of four Israeli hostages: Shiri Bibas, her two young children Ariel and Kfir, and octogenarian peace activist Oded Lifshitz, all of whom were kidnapped alive by terrorists on October 7, 2023.

He was seated in the front row alongside other Hamas dignitaries, apparently as a guest of honor. Abu Warda’s presence at the ceremony was first reported in Israel by the Kan public broadcaster.

Des prisonniers libérés par la résistance dans l'accord Toufane Al-Ahrar participent à la cérémonie de restitution des corps des prisonniers israéliens à Khan Younès… L'ex-prisonnier libéré, Mohamed Abou Warda : Nous affirmons que nous restons engagés dans notre résistance et… pic.twitter.com/orHRVsq32B

— Le Centre Palestinien D'Information (@PalinfoFr) February 20, 2025

Speaking to a reporter, Abu Warda vowed that Hamas’s “resistance” would continue “until we reach liberation of [Jerusalem] and all our lands.”

Under the terms of the first stage of the ceasefire agreement, Israel is freeing some 2,000 Palestinians in prison for security offenses, including hundreds serving life sentences, in exchange for the release of 25 living hostages and eight bodies.

Abu Warda was freed in the third round of the deal, in exchange for the release of hostages Gadi Mozes, Agam Berger, and Arbel Yehoud.

Palestinian security inmates released by Israel as part of a hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas are welcomed by family members as they arrive on buses to the European hospital in Khan Younis on February 1, 2025. (Eyad Baba / AFP)

According to the Kan broadcaster, Egypt refused to grant entry to Abu Warda and 19 other released security prisoners and has demanded that other prisoners it has already taken in be deported elsewhere before it will accept new prisoners.

Hamas claims initial agreements have been received from Algeria, Indonesia, Malaysia and Qatar to accept released Palestinian prisoners, but this has not yet been implemented, Kan reported.

Abu Warda was arrested by the Palestinian Authority in 2002 in connection to bombings he organized for Hamas and had been in Israeli prisons until his release earlier this month.

An Israeli police officer and a medic run at the scene of an explosion where a suicide bomber exploded a bomb in a bus in downtown Jerusalem, Sunday March 3 1996, killing 18 and injuring scores. The Islamic terror group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. (AP Photo/Brian Hendler)

When he was charged in 2004, the Israeli judges called the case “one of the most serious indictments ever filed in the State of Israel.”

Throughout the ceasefire, Hamas has staged public ceremonies when releasing hostages in an attempt to bolster its claims of remaining in power in Gaza, after being pounded by Israel’s military for some 15 months in response to the October 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel.

During the Khan Younis ceremony Thursday, Hamas displayed four black coffins on stage surrounded by banners, including a large one depicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a vampire.

Coffins apparently containing the bodies of slain Israeli hostages Shiri Bibas, her two children Ariel and Kfir, and Oded Lifshitz, are displayed on a stage with a propaganda message before being handed over to the Red Cross by Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Feb. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Thousands of people, including large numbers of masked and armed members of terror groups, looked on as the coffins were loaded onto Red Cross vehicles before being driven to Israeli forces.

Inside the coffins were thought to be the bodies of Shiri Bibas, her small children Ariel, 4 at the time, and Kfir, just 9 months old, and Lifshitz, all kidnapped from their Nir Oz homes.

Palestinian gunmen carry a coffin said to contain the body of an Israeli hostage, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025. (AP/Jehad Alshrafi)

After receiving the coffins inside Gaza, the IDF held a small military ceremony, led by IDF Chief Rabbi Brig. Gen. Eyal Karim, who read psalms as the coffins were draped in Israeli flags.

Israelis, many somberly waving flags, lined roads as a convoy of vehicles brought the bodies to a forensic institute in Tel Aviv for identification.