Core: ValidationException on metadata-only delete of certain delete files

core/src/main/java/org/apache/iceberg/ManifestFilterManager.java

@@ -350,7 +350,7 @@ private boolean canContainDeletedFiles(ManifestFile manifest) {
     return canContainExpressionDeletes || canContainDroppedPartitions || canContainDroppedFiles || canContainDropBySeq;
   }
 
-  @SuppressWarnings("CollectionUndefinedEquality")
+  @SuppressWarnings({"CollectionUndefinedEquality", "CyclomaticComplexity"})
   private boolean manifestHasDeletedFiles(PartitionAndMetricsEvaluator evaluator, ManifestReader<F> reader) {
     boolean isDelete = reader.isDeleteManifestReader();
     boolean hasDeletedFiles = false;
@@ -359,7 +359,13 @@ private boolean manifestHasDeletedFiles(PartitionAndMetricsEvaluator evaluator,
       boolean fileDelete = deletePaths.contains(file.path()) ||
           dropPartitions.contains(file.specId(), file.partition()) ||
           (isDelete && entry.sequenceNumber() > 0 && entry.sequenceNumber() < minSequenceNumber);
+
       if (fileDelete || evaluator.rowsMightMatch(file)) {
+        if (!fileDelete && !file.content().equals(FileContent.DATA) && !evaluator.rowsMustMatch(file)) {
+          // not all DeleteFiles removal can be handled by metadata operation, skip if it cannot
+          continue;
+        }
+
         ValidationException.check(
             fileDelete || evaluator.rowsMustMatch(file),
             "Cannot delete file where some, but not all, rows match filter %s: %s",

spark/v3.2/spark-extensions/src/test/java/org/apache/iceberg/spark/extensions/TestDelete.java

@@ -80,6 +80,23 @@ public void removeTables() {
     sql("DROP TABLE IF EXISTS deleted_dep");
   }
 
+  @Test
+  public void testDeleteFileThenMetadataDelete() {
+    createAndInitUnpartitionedTable();
+
+    sql("INSERT INTO TABLE %s VALUES (1, 'hr'), (2, 'hardware'), (null, 'hr')", tableName);
+
+    // MOR mode: writes a delete file as null cannot be deleted by metadata
+    sql("DELETE FROM %s AS t WHERE t.id IS NULL", tableName);
+
+    // Metadata Delete
+    sql("DELETE FROM %s AS t WHERE t.id = 1", tableName);
+
+    assertEquals("Should have expected rows",
+        ImmutableList.of(row(2, "hardware")),
+        sql("SELECT * FROM %s ORDER BY id", tableName));
+  }
+
   @Test
   public void testDeleteWithFalseCondition() {
     createAndInitUnpartitionedTable();