Hamas released four female Israeli soldiers held hostage in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, in a choreographed ceremony that was the latest sign of the group’s efforts to project power despite Israel’s 470-day military campaign to drive them out.

It was the second release of hostages as part of a cease-fire agreement that took effect nearly a week earlier. According to the agreement, Israel released 200 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons on Saturday.

A line of white buses with prisoners left Ofer prison in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Prisoners were also released from another facility near Beersheba in southern Israel, the Israel Prison Service said.

Many of the 200 prisoners released on Saturday they were serving life sentences for their involvement in attacks on Israelis. About 70 of them were exiled abroad as part of the agreement and will it must not be returned to their homes in the West Bank and Jerusalem, according to a list provided by the Palestinian Authority.

But Saturday’s exchange of prisoners and hostages did not go entirely according to plan. Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israeli army, accused Hamas of violating the agreement by not first returning captured Israeli civilians. Israeli officials said that under the deal, Arbel Yehud, an Israeli woman held hostage in Gaza, was to be one of four women freed on Saturday.

Israel was expected to withdraw some of its forces to allow hundreds of thousands of displaced Gazans to head north after Saturday’s exchange. But the Israeli prime minister’s office said it would not allow Gaza residents to head north “until the release of Arbel Yehud civilians is agreed,” leaving unclear when the troops would withdraw and residents would return.

Hamas has accused Israel of being reluctant to fully implement the ceasefire agreement. The dispute is one of the most significant between the sides since the ceasefire took effect.

Israeli officials said they believed Ms. Yehud was not being held by Hamas, suggesting she may have been held by another party, and that the arrest was not solely Hamas’ responsibility.

The four Israeli hostages freed by Hamas on Saturday, who were dressed in military uniform, were working as Israeli army lookouts, reporting on suspicious activity across the border, when they were captured. During a Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, militants stormed the Nahal Oz military base in Israel, killing more than 50 soldiers and abducting four women and three other female soldiers.

Under the terms of the cease-fire agreement, fighting between the Israeli army and Hamas militants came to a halt on the morning of Sunday, January 19. The first hostages, three women captured in the 2023 attack, were freed on Sunday, in exchange for 90 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, who were released hours later.

The current phase of the ceasefire is expected to last just 42 days and free only 33 of the 100 or so hostages still in Gaza, some of whom are believed to be dead. We face significant diplomatic obstacles to extending the ceasefire. Israel and Hamas reached the deal in part by postponing their most vexed disputes until a vaguely described “second phase,” which could be difficult to negotiate.

During a hostage handover ceremony on Saturday, armed Hamas fighters dressed in immaculate uniforms, with their faces covered, escorted the four hostages to a stage in Palestine Square in central Gaza City. They were then handed over to a representative of the Red Cross.

The staged ceremony, ostensibly intended to convey Hamas’s strength and control in Gaza, included several disturbing juxtapositions.

The backdrop of the handover was a large banner emblazoned with slogans, one of which described Palestine in English as “Victory of the Oppressed People against Nazi Zionism.”

The ceremony was held in an area devastated by Israeli bombing and ground incursion, with hundreds of uniformed fighters and civilians gathered nearby. Hamas fighters were showered with confetti.

The hostages smiled inappropriately and waved at onlookers who cheered and whistled. In the past, Israeli officials have said that Hamas made the hostages appear cheerful to suggest they were being treated well.

adm. Hagari, a spokesman for the Israeli army, derided the ceremony as “cynical”.

Hamas “presented a false show of taking care of hostages, while in fact it cruelly held men and women for 477 days,” said Adm. Hagar.

Before the four hostages were freed, Hamas held a signing ceremony on stage, between one of its own members and a representative of the Red Cross. The hostages were then driven by the Red Cross to Israeli troops stationed in the area.

Two Israeli helicopters flew the hostages to Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, a city in central Israel, amid excited cheers from hundreds who had gathered to greet their arrival with Israeli flags.

“We wanted to show the hostages and their families how much we care about them,” said Helena Dabush, 42, who lives nearby and brought her four children.

All the freed hostages were teenagers and recent army recruits when they were kidnapped. Karina Ariev, now 20, is the daughter of immigrants from Ukraine; Daniella Gilboa, 20, is an aspiring concert pianist from central Israel; Naama Levy, 20, was a triathlete who grew up in a town north of Tel Aviv; and Liri Albag, 19, is an ambitious architect and interior designer.

There was also jubilation in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, where hundreds of Palestinians gathered at the municipal building to welcome freed Palestinian prisoners and jostled to catch their loved ones as they exited Red Cross buses.

Some freed prisoners, still wearing gray uniforms apparently issued by Israeli prison authorities, carried the chanting crowd on their shoulders.

“We are leaving prison, but the price of our freedom is high,” Mohammad Arda, one of the freed prisoners, told reporters as family and friends crowded around him. “I think about the families of the prisoners we lost over the past year and a half.”

The 90 prisoners released by Israel almost a week earlier were mostly women and minors. This time, the Israeli authorities released many people who were convicted of much more serious crimes, including the murders of Israeli civilians.

According to the Israeli government, Mr. Arda — an activist in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group — was sentenced to life in prison for attempted murder and planting an explosive device, among other crimes. He was one of six prisoners who briefly escaped from an Israeli prison in 2021, stunning Israelis and Palestinians, before being caught.

More than 1,500 Palestinians jailed by Israel are set to be freed as part of the first phase of a ceasefire and hostage release deal. Hamas promised to release 33 hostages; 97 — of whom the Israeli military believes about a third are dead — were detained in Gaza when the deal took effect last Sunday, according to Israeli authorities.

About 120 Palestinian prisoners freed on Saturday were serving life sentences for their involvement in attacks on Israelis, according to lists provided by the Hamas-linked prisons office. Among those released on Saturday were Mohammad Odeh, Wael Qassim and Wissam Abbasi, who were arrested in 2002 over a series of deadly bombings targeting Israelis in crowded civilian areas. All three were serving life sentences.

In one of the group’s most notorious attacks, which took place at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, nine people were killed, including five Americans.

The three men are among those who will be exiled abroad and will never be allowed to return to their homes in Jerusalem, according to the terms of the agreement.

It was still uncertain Saturday when displaced Palestinians in southern and central Gaza would be able to return to their neighborhoods in the north, many of which have been destroyed by Israeli bombardment.

The stalled withdrawal of Israeli troops left many Palestinians in a state of anxious waiting as they packed their belongings, including kitchen supplies, clothes and mattress pads.

“My husband and I have been waiting for this day with so much anticipation, but I can’t help but feel fear because of the great destruction I will see on the way back,” said Nour Qasim, 22, a resident of Gaza City.

The truce was mediated by mediators from Qatar, Egypt and representatives of both the outgoing Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration. It was a rare example of high-level cooperation between the two teams, but the difference in how they can approach the clash became clear on Friday.

The Trump administration said it would resume the delivery of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel that then-President Joseph R. Biden Jr. abruptly ended last summer to try to dissuade the Israeli military from destroying much of the town of Rafah, which Israeli forces did anyway.

The shipment includes 1,800 MK-84 bombs, said the White House official, who agreed to discuss the sensitive arms assistance on condition of anonymity. American military officers judge that such bombs are generally too deadly and destructive for urban combat. Until the break, the Biden administration was sending bombs to Israel while its military was fighting Hamas in Gaza.

They contributed to the report Fatima Abdul Karim, Afif Amireh, Nathan Odenheimer, Rawan Sheikh AhmadBilal Shabair, Aritz Parra and Edward Wong.