Ramullah, West Bank (APP) – Israel released 183 Palestinian prisoners on Saturday in the latest exchange for Israeli hostages held in Gaza, which has stopped the war but whose future is uncertain.
Israel views prisoners as terrorists, while Palestinians see them as libertarians who resist decades -long military occupation.
Almost every Palestinian is a friend or family member who has been jailed at some time for militant attacks. Or fewer crimes Like throwing rocks, protests or memberships in a prohibited political group. For a few months or years, no trials are held, known as administrative detention, which says Israel says it is needed to stop the attacks and prevent sensitive intelligence.
Eighteen of those released on Saturday were sentenced to life imprisonment, and 54 were sentenced to prolonged charges of being involved in deadly attacks against Israelis. Some have been in jail for two decades. In the West Bank city of Bethonia, the whistle -playing crowd welcomed the prisoners as a hero, hoisted the flags, and chanted slogans to support Hamas.
Something released men fell on their knees when they stepped off the bus, when they said crying while kissing the cold floor. Before traveling to their homes all over the West Bank, they were welcomed by relatives of tears.
“We are waiting. And waiting is the most traumatic thing, it is wearing the nerves, “said Samam Abu Aaliyah, whose 34 -year -old son, Emad Abu Aaliyah, served on Saturday after serving four and a half years to affiliate with Hamas. Thankfully, we have been released.
Seven of those committed to the most serious crimes were shifted to Egypt and will either remain in this country or be deported under the terms of the ceasefire agreement.
Among those released included 111 Palestinians from Gaza, who were invaded to southern Israel after Hamas on October 7, 2023, which mobilized the war in Gaza. He was detained without trial. The Red Cross brought them to the European Hospital in Khan Younis, the southern Gaza town, where many people took to the streets to celebrate.
A look at some of the famous Palestinian prisoners issued since the war on January 19.
Abu Shakhadam, 49, was sentenced to 18 in prison between 2000 and 2005, or dozens of Israelis involved in the Hamas attacks during the Palestinian uprising.
The most notorious of the attacks was in a dual suicide bombing that blew up two buses in the southern Israeli city of Beir Shiba in 2004, killing 16 Israelis, including a 4 -year -old child, and injuring more than 100 others. Has been done. In an interview with Arabic news outlets, he described his militancy as a desire to avenge his brother’s murder by Israeli security forces in 2000.
In November 2004, Abu Shakhad was fleeing for weeks before his arrest in his hometown of Hebron in the West Bank, after firing with Israeli security forces in which he was shot 10 times.
During his 21 -year imprisonment, his family said, he finished high school and obtained a certificate for courses in psychology.
When he stepped into the Red Cross convoy into the town of Bethonia, Abu Shamkham was raised on the shoulders of dozens of supporters. The feeling of relief and notoriety was shaken by his father, hugging his father.
“From the time I entered jail, I was sure, one day, I would go home,” he told the Associate Press. “Prison guards didn’t believe me. But all the time, I was convinced that, with the help of God, I would be free.
In the occupied West Bank, a prominent Hamas politician, 61 -year -old Al -Tauel, spent two decades in Israeli prisons and out of it in two decades and a part of it that he has helped plan suicide bombings.
Recently, the Israeli army arrested Al -Ta’il in 2021, saying it had participated in the violent riots of Hamas political activists in the seat of the semi -ultomosis Palestinian Authority and Hamas’s central rival Ramullah.
Since then he has been without charge or trial. After his arrest, he went on a hunger strike for more than three weeks to protest his administrative detention.
In the early 2000s, during a circle of Al -Taoel in the Israeli prison, he launched a successful election campaign from custody to become the mayor of Albara, a city on the West Bank, an end to Ramullah.
Since 2007, US judicial documents filed by the families of Israelis who were killed during the second anti -inflammatory, suggests that al -Tauel as the chairman of the Al -Islam Charitable Society, a front -collecting money for Hamas. He served for many years. The case has been accused of recruiting a Hamas militant in 2001 for a suicide bombing, targeting a crowd of pedestrians in Jerusalem, killing 11 people. –
His daughter, 32 -year -old journalist Bashara al -Tauel, was among the dozens of women and teenagers who were released in the first round of prisoners on January 19.
Prior to his father’s release, he wrote on Instagram that Israeli security forces burst into his house near Ramullah in the morning and if his family was engaged in any form of public celebration, threatened to repeat it. Give The Israeli military did not respond to the commentary email.
Very weak for walking, Al Taoel had to lift the prisoner’s bus and take him to the hospital for treatment immediately. His family shared photos of him lying on the hospital bed, tired. After the release, six other Palestinian prisoners were also taken to the hospital immediately.
The Palestinian manager of the Gaza Branch of the World Vision, a major organization of Christian Aid, Was arrested in 2016 and charged In a high -level issue, tens of millions of dollars to Hamas, which criticized rights groups. He was released on February 1.
Both 47 -year -old Al -Halabi and World Vision Denied these charges And in the free investigation, no evidence of wrongdoing was found. An independent audit has found that Al -Halabi has imposed internal control and ordered employees to avoid anyone on suspicion of Hamas relations.
Rights groups say that al -Halabi was denied a fair and transparent trial, as he and the global point of view had no opportunity to review the evidence against them. UN experts say that al -Halabi was questioned for 50 days without access to a lawyer. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Israel has attributed closed hearings to sensitive security information that is being discussed.
44 -year -old Amori, who belongs to the northwestern city of Genin, was arrested and alleged that he was involved in producing a powerful car bomb that on June 5, 2002 with an Israeli bus full of passengers. The explosion was, in which 17 Israelis were killed, known as. Magdo junction suicide bombing.
The second attack took place in northern Israel. Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Amori was sentenced to life imprisonment for 20 years. He was among those who moved to Egypt on February 1 and was released in exile.
Zakaria Zubedi There is a prominent leader and theater director of the militants Dreadfully trapped In 2021, the Palestinians across the Middle East were pleased and stunned the Israeli security establishment.
Zubedi was a senior militant in the brigade of Shahada Shahada at a civilian refugee camp in the West Bank. After the second infiltration in 2006, it laid the foundation of a theater in Jenn to describe it as a cultural resistance to Israel. The Freedom Theater has presented everything from Shakespeare to Standup comedy to the residential dramas.
In 2019, Zoobidi, after working in prison in the early 2000s for the first years in prison, re -arrested him, and accused him of attacking Israeli settlers buses. I was involved but there was no injury.
Zubedi was waiting for a trial in jail before being released in the West Bank on January 30. He denied the allegations, saying that he had abandoned the militancy to focus on his political activity after the infidelity.
In 2021, he and five other prisoners were left out of more security in northern Israel. After all six days he was recovered.
During the second infiltration, a Hamas militant, Abu Warda, helped organize a series of suicide bombings, killing more than 40 people and injuring more than 100 others. Israel was arrested by Israel in 2002, and in the longest sentences so far, he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
As a young student, after the assassination of Yahya Ayesh, a leading bomb maker of the group of militants in 1996, Abu Warda joined Hamas at the beginning of the influence.
Palestinian authorities said that Aboda had helped recruit suicide bombers, whose attacks target civilian areas in Israeli cities, killing several people in the early 2000s.
Abu Warda was released and deported on January 30.
A activist in Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Riraj, was sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of several crimes returning to another. According to the Israeli prison service, some charges included an explosive device and an attempt to murder.
He was granted an extraordinary jail to escape in 2021, when he and five other detainees, including Zubedi, used spoons to tunnel one of Israel’s safest prisons. They remained widely for the day before they were caught.
I from a poorly and politically active family Genin, in the North West BankAraj has three brothers and a sister who spent all years in Israeli prisons.
On January 25, Ramullah was welcomed as a hero of a sect, while the family and fans harmonized it, some “Freedom Tunnel!” Say the slogan. With reference to it Jail brake.
Mohammad Odia, 52, Wael Qasim, 54, and Wasim Abbasi, 48
The three men belong to the Sloan neighborhood in East Jerusalem, and stand in the ranks of Hamas. During the second infiltration, he was held responsible for the deadly attacks, sentenced to life imprisonment in 2002.
He was accused of planning a suicide bombing in a crowded pool hall near Tel Aviv in 2002, killing 15 people. Later this year, he planned a bombing at Hebrew University, killing nine people, including five US students. Israel described Odia, who was then working as a painter at the university, as the architect of the attack.
The three were shifted to Egypt on January 25. His family lives in Jerusalem and said he would join him in exile.
Palestinian officials said that 67 -year -old Altos had a long -standing prisoner in Israel until the release of last week.
For the first time in 1985, he was arrested while fighting Israeli forces along the Jordanian border, a worker at Fatah Party spent 39 years behind bars. In fact, from the West Bank city of Jerusalem, he was one of the deported prisoners on January 25.
