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The Daily Edition

What Matters Most On Sunday, February 23, 2025

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Israeli hostage Eliya Cohen, flanked by Palestinian Hamas fighters, waves under duress before being released along with two others in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, on February 22, 2025. (Bashar TALEB / AFP)

Hamas: It's an excuse by Israel to shirk deal's obligations

Israel halts release of Palestinian prisoners over ‘humiliating’ hostage handovers

By Agencies and ToI Staff

Netanyahu demands guarantee that Hamas end ceremonies in which hostages are paraded in front of crowds before freeing inmates, nixing planned release of 600 prisoners Saturday

Hebrew media watchThe eve of a return to war

By Amir Ben-David

Crowd greets Palestinian prisoners after being released from Israeli prison following a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025. (AP/Mahmoud Illean)

Israel delays release of Palestinian security prisoners after hostages freed at propaganda events

By Charlie Summers

Hostages Evyatar David (left) and Guy Gilboa-Dalal speak in a Hamas propaganda video filmed at the site and time of the release ceremony in Gaza for three other captives, February 22, 2025. (Screenshot: Telegram)

Hamas propaganda clip shows two hostages forced to watch at ceremony as others are freed

By ToI Staff, Emanuel Fabian and AFP

Families and supporters decry ‘psychological torture’ of dragging Evyatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal to handover event; in likely coached remarks, pair beg for deal to free them

Freed hostage Hisham al-Sayed arrives at Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv, after being released by Hamas following 10 years in Gaza captivity, February 22, 2025. (Maayan Toaf/GPO)

ToI podcastDaily Briefing Feb. 23: Day 506 – Torture, isolation: What 6 freed hostages endured

By Amanda Borschel-Dan and David Horovitz

Live updates (closed)

Feb. 23: Hamas says it is halting all negotiations until Israel frees prisoners slated for release

Shiri, Ariel, Kfir Bibas to be buried Wednesday in private ceremony after public procession * Netanyahu, Sa’ar congratulate German conservatives on election victory

9:46 pm

New Syrian leader invited to Arab summit on Gaza in Cairo
9:21 pm

Or Levy was shocked to hear of Hersh Goldberg-Polin's fate upon release, says his brother
8:55 pm

Netanyahu speaks to freed hostages Ohad Ben-Ami and Sagui Dekel-Chen

Promoted CampaignBrandeis: Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (BOLLI)

Brandeis: Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (BOLLI)

We are a year-round community of intellectually curious adults, age 50 and above, who explore a liberal arts curriculum through study groups, seminars, lecture series and events.

The six hostages released on February 22, 2025 reunite with their families. Top row from left: Omer Wenkert, Omer Shem Tov, Avera Mengistu. Bottom row from left: Hisham al-Sayed, Eliya Cohen, Tal Shoham. (IDF)

Eliya Cohen only learned on release that fiancee survived

Hostages were chained, starved, kept in pitch black; some return almost unresponsive

By Emanuel Fabian, Lazar Berman, Michael Bachner, Charlie Summers, Leon Kraiem and ToI Staff

Hamas made 2 hostages not going free watch release ceremony from a vehicle near the stage; Omer Shem Tov, abducted from Nova festival, was held alone in a tunnel for some 450 days

Relatives are reunited with Avera Mengistu at a military facility near Re'im on February 22, 2025. (IDF)

A decade of ‘unimaginable suffering:’ Relief as Avera Mengistu, Hisham al-Sayed freed

The Muslim world speaks: Hamas must meet its end

In a message to all Muslims, top Saudi and UAE Muslim clerics have rightly condemned Palestinian atrocities as a stain on Islam

How do we recover from this?

Israel’s significant military victories across the region fade next to Hamas’s psychological wins over the hostage returns. Here’s what we can do

All of the 25 living hostages released during the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire-hostage deal, shown reunited with their families. Top row, from left: Karina Ariev, Liri Albag, Doron Steinbrecher, Emily Damari, Romi Gonen. 2nd row, from left: Gadi Mozes, Arbel Yehoud, Agam Berger, Naama Levy, Daniella Gilboa. 3rd row, from left: Ohad Ben Ami, Or Levy, Ofer Calderon, Yarden Bibas, Keith Siegel. 4th row, from left: Avera Mengistu, Sasha Troufanov, Iair Horn, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Eli Sharabi. Bottom row, from left: Hisham al-Sayed, Eliya Cohen, Omer Wenkert, Omer Shem Tov, Tal Shoham. (Photos by IDF and GPO)

As truce’s first stage winds down, families of hostages plead for more releases

By Noam Lehmann and ToI Staff

Captive’s mother to Netanyahu: ‘Free all hostages, in one batch, now’; father of hostage who returned earlier in day says no one should be allowed to prevent freedom for others

IDF officers salute a casket containing the body of slain hostage Shiri Silberman Bibas, late on February 21, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)

Netanyahu: Will not forget and will not forgive

Forensics chief confirms ID of body of Shiri Bibas, no evidence she died in explosion

By ToI Staff and Emanuel Fabian

Comments come after Israel assesses she was ‘brutally murdered’ with her sons in November 2023; Hamas insists she died in airstrike, accuses Israel of disseminating ‘baseless lies’

The Transamerica Pyramid Center in San Francisco is illuminated in orange in memory of the Bibas family, February 21, 2025. (Foreign Ministry)

Landmarks, monuments worldwide light up in orange in memory of Bibas family

By Lazar Berman and ToI Staff

‘Disgraceful what’s going on there’: Trump pans Hamas treatment of hostages

By Jacob Magid and ToI Staff

US president says six captives released Saturday ‘not in great shape’ but others have been worse; Secretary of State Rubio slams ‘savagery’ in handling of hostages

US President Donald Trump responds to reporters as he arrives at the White House after speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, in Washington, February 22, 2025. (John McDonnell/AP)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, on April 4, 2023. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)

Netanyahu ignored Shin Bet chief’s bid to kill Sinwar days before Oct. 7 – report

Illustrative: A photo taken from the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Hamam shows smoke rising after an explosion during an Israeli army operation in the village of Kfarshouba near the border on February 16, 2024. (Rabih Daher/AFP)

IDF strikes in Lebanon, says it targeted Hezbollah rocket launchers and weapons

By Emanuel Fabian

Ceasefire agreement permits Israel to respond to ‘imminent threats’; strikes come as Lebanon prepares for mass funeral of Nasrallah in Beirut

People pass between chairs set up outside Beirut's City Sportive stadium, a day ahead of the funeral procession of Hezbollah leaders Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, in Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Nasrallah to be buried Sunday in Beirut, in Lebanon’s biggest funeral in decades

By AP and ToI Staff

IDF deploys tanks in West Bank for first time since 2002, sending 3 to Jenin as it expands op

By Emanuel Fabian

Defense minister says he instructed army to stay ‘for coming year’ in West Bank refugee camps and not allow 40,000 displaced Palestinians home

Israeli tanks are seen near the West Bank city of Jenin, February 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

Itay & Beyond scientists and researchers at a lab at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. (Courtesy)

Israeli scientists fuse ‘brain tissue’ and electronic chips to test autism treatment

By Sharon Wrobel

Biotech startup Itay & Beyond uses AI analysis of a ‘brain-on-a-chip’ made from stem cells to predict drug efficacy for neuropsychiatric disorders, expedite testing and development

Analysis

Germany’s rising far-right AfD is split over Israel. Jews call party ‘a danger’ either way

With the party deeply divided over support of the Jewish state and poised to take 20% of the national vote Sunday, its past — and ongoing — record of antisemitism looms largest

Supporters of the far-right AfD party sing the national anthem as they attend an election campaign rally of the party for the upcoming state elections in Suhl, Germany, August 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

A ballot box is sealed with the electoral seal of the German State of Bavaria in Memmelsdorf, Germany, Feb. 23, 2025, during the national election. (Pia Bayer/dpa via AP)

Germans head to voting booths with far-right expected to surge

By Geir Moulson

Hadash-Ta’al legislator Ofer Cassif in his Knesset office, February 19, 2025. (Sam Sokol/Times of Israel)

Interview

Faced with impeachment, far-left lawmaker slams attempts to silence him

Right-wing MKs seeking to boot Ofer Cassif, the Arab-majority Hadash-Ta’al party’s only Jewish lawmaker, for comparing Palestinians in Gaza to Jews fleeing pre-war Nazi Germany

David Cunio, right, with his twin brother, Eitan Cunio in footage for the film 'Letter to David,' being screened at the February 2025 Berlinale and made by filmmaker Tom Shoval after David Cunio was taken hostage by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023 (Courtesy)

In Berlin, Israeli director screens homage to hostage David Cunio and his family

By Jessica Steinberg

More Headlines

MK Naama Lazimi (left) attends a Women and Gender Equality committee meeting at the Knesset, in Jerusalem on January 27, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90); Yair Netanyahu arrives for a court hearing in Tel Aviv, on November 29, 2022. (Avshalom Sassoni/ Flash90)

MK claims Netanyahu’s son was sent abroad for hitting PM; Likud: ‘A despicable lie’

This photograph shows firefighter (L) and police vehicles near the site of a bladed weapon attack where a man is suspected of killing one person and wounding two municipal police officers in Mulhouse, eastern France on February 22, 2025. (Sebastien Bozon/AFP)

French authorities arrest four after terror stabbing in country’s east

By AP

Candles and a photo of Pope Francis are seen in front of the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic, in Rome, February 22, 2025, where the Pontiff has been hospitalized since Friday, February 14.(AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope in critical condition after suffering respiratory attack, Vatican says

By Alice Ritchie

An Arkia flight over Tel Aviv, December 14, 2024. (Yossi Aloni FLASH90)

Arkia extends Tel Aviv-New York route until at least October, adds new destinations

By Sharon Wrobel

Wastewater contaminated by sewage flows into the Shikma Stream in southern Israel. (Atid LeOtef)

Residents say state shirking responsibility over sewage pollution in southern stream

Palestinian medics administer polio vaccines to children at the al-Daraj neighborhood clinic in Gaza City on September 10, 2024. (Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP)

Third round of polio vaccinations begins in Gaza amid ceasefire

By AFP and ToI Staff

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