More than a thousand Palestinian prisoners, many of whom have been held without charge for years in the Israeli prison system, are preparing for their first taste of freedom.
The exact number of prisoners released in exchange for Israeli captives held in Gaza is unclear. The text of the ceasefire agreement has not yet been released, and details reported by media describe different ratios for the captive-prisoner exchange, depending on whether Palestinian prisoners are serving life sentences or not. .
There are currently 10,400 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, not counting those detained in Gaza during the past 15 months of conflict, according to the Palestinian Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners Society.
The Israeli Justice Ministry released a list of 95 Palestinian women and children expected to be released on Sunday if implementation of the ceasefire agreement begins, but beyond that list, no names of the prisoners who will be released is not known.
Under the terms of the agreement, their release will not take place before Sunday at 4 p.m. local time (2 p.m. GMT).
The list of names released by Israel shows that a large majority were arrested after the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, according to media reports. Fewer than ten people were arrested before the attacks.
First phase
In the first stage of the three-phase deal between Hamas and Israel, more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners will be exchanged for 33 of the remaining Israeli prisoners, estimated to number around 100 in total.
Under the terms of the deal, Palestinian prisoners will be released in exchange for Israeli captives in ratios agreed by both sides and international mediators in Doha.
According to reports, 110 Palestinian prisoners sentenced to life by Israeli courts will be exchanged for nine sick and injured Israeli captives. In addition, Israeli men over the age of 50 will be released in exchange for Palestinian captives in a ratio of 1:3 for those sentenced to life imprisonment, and 1:27 for those serving other sentences.
Previous prisoner exchanges
Prisoners have long been used as a bargaining chip in relations between Israel and Palestinian groups.
During the stalled 2013 peace negotiations, Israel agreed to the staggered release of more than 100 Palestinians, in an effort to strengthen the negotiations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the time.
However, closer parallels to current exchanges can be found in the prisoner exchanges of 1983, when more than 4,500 Palestinian prisoners were released in exchange for six Israeli soldiers. Similarly, in 1985, some 1,150 Palestinian prisoners were exchanged for three Israeli soldiers. The current exchange is also similar in scale to perhaps the most famous prisoner exchange, which involved the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011.
Gilad Shalit exchange
1,027 Palestinian prisoners were exchanged in 2011 for Shalit, who was captured by Hamas in a 2006 cross-border raid and held for five years as negotiations for his release failed.
In 2014, the Israeli government admitted to re-arresting 51 of these prisoners following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the occupied West Bank. Explaining the arrests afterward, Netanyahu made no attempt to link those arrested to the missing teens, saying only that their kidnapping sent “an important message” to Hamas.
High-level prisoners
Israeli Army Radio reported that Khalida Jarrar, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in the occupied West Bank, was among the Palestinian prisoners who will be released on Sunday.
The Palestinians are also demanding the release of several other high-profile prisoners, some of whom are serving life sentences.
Among them is one of the leading figures of the Palestinian group Fatah, Marwan Barghouti, whose long-awaited release has been repeatedly blocked by the Israeli authorities. The release of Barghouti, who in 2006 helped draft the Palestinian Prisoner Document, bringing together many disparate Palestinian factions, could have significant implications for Palestinian politics, as the unifying figure has repeatedly come out on top when Palestinians were asked who they would choose. vote for it in future presidential elections.
Contacted by Tel Aviv Tribune on Friday, Barghouti’s representatives, including family members, said that while they remained hopeful, they had not received any information about his possible release.
Another high-profile Palestinian prisoner is Ahmed Saadat, the leader of the PFLP, who was accused by Israel of ordering the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi in 2001, although the Justice Ministry initially decided there was not enough evidence to charge him. for the murder.
What did the prisoners endure?
Although the whereabouts of many prisoners scheduled for release are unknown, rights groups have long expressed concern about conditions in Israel’s prison system.
In August, Israeli rights group B’Tselem released a detailed report detailing a network of Israeli detention centers that it called “torture camps.” Global NGO Human Rights Watch also released reports on the Israeli prison system in July and August, detailing rapes, the sharing of sexualized images of Palestinian prisoners, including children, and systemic torture of detainees.
In July 2024, the Israeli minister responsible for the prison system, far-right politician Itamar Ben-Gvir, boasted that “everything that has been published about the abominable conditions” Palestinians were subjected to in prisons Israeli “was true”.
More than 3,000 Palestinian prisoners are also held in administrative detention, meaning they are held without trial or charge.