In Israel, the release of Gaza captives was celebrated, each welcomed at home in scenes of joy in the streets of the country.
The Palestinians, on the other hand, were informed that no such thing should be authorized for their prisoners released by Israel. In fact, any attempt to receive prisoners was explicitly prohibited by Israel.
In an incident highlighting tensions, the Israeli army launched a reprisal operation one day after the release of Ashraf Zghair, a 46 -year -old Palestinian who had been imprisoned since the age of 23 and served six penalties to perpetuity.
When the neighbors and family members openly celebrated the release of Zghair on Saturday January 25, the authorities arrested his brother Amir, father of four.
Mounir Zghair, official spokesperson for Jerusalem Prisoners of War Association and Ashraf’s father, condemned the arrest in an interview.
“My son’s arrest has no legal basis,” he said. “We were not officially informed of the rules that we violate supposed to violate.”
This incident embodies the wider scheme of the restrictions imposed on Palestinian prisoners and their families. A family, speaking under the cover of anonymity due to the fear of reprisals, revealed the extent of these limitations
“We are not allowed to organize reception evenings or distribute candy,” the family told Tel Aviv Tribune. “Liberated detainees are also prohibited from talking to any form of media in the threat of rearrangement. It is the way of the occupation to restrict the freedom of prisoners even after their release. “”
Israel led the release of Palestinian prisoners as a necessary evil and negotiated by an agreement with a “terrorist organization”. He therefore considers any celebration of their release as support for “terrorism”.
“The consequences of the celebration are many people, including the arrest of the members of the family of prisoners released for having supported a terrorist organization, as in the case of the brother of Ashraf Zghair, who was arrested for welcoming his Brother published with ‘`Green Flags”,” said Mohamed Mahmoud, a lawyer who works in Palestinian prisoners. The Hamas flag is green, but many other flags represent Palestinian groups or Islamic causes.
Prisoner conditions
The future of the ceasefire is currently uncertain. Hamas said on Monday that it would suspend the release of captives scheduled for Saturday due to Israeli violations of the agreement. Israel replied by threatening to restart the bombing of Gaza if the captives are not released.
A large part of the objective in the days preceding the announcement of Hamas was in the State that the three Israeli captives released from Gaza on Saturday were – all emaciated. However, there was no concentration on the large number of Palestinian prisoners emerging from Israeli prisons in similar states, many of which were transported to the hospital.
One of the Palestinians released at the end of January was Adam Al-Hadra, 18, who had been detained from the West Bank occupied in November 2023.
“When I discovered that I was included in the agreement, I came back to life. It was an indescribable feeling. What was hurting is to be far from my family, not to mention the humiliation, hunger and the disease we suffered in occupation prisons, “he said in Tel Aviv Tribune.
However, Al-Hadra’s freedom came with immediate restrictions. A few days after his release, it was forbidden to enter the old town of Jerusalem-“another way whose occupation imposes its authority on the Palestinians,” he noted. Al-Hadra’s lawyer told Tel Aviv Tribune that no reason was given by the Israeli authorities for restrictions.
REANGRANT potential
Many Palestinians arrested are likely to be arrested by Israel, and many of those involved in previous exchanges have been.
Legal expert Nadia Daqqa has highlighted important concerns about the release process.
“The prisoners were released without providing legal documents explaining the framework of their release,” she said. “This poses a major problem because Israeli law now allows the government to stop prisoners at the end of political or security interest.”
This maintains the prisoners in a “legal limbo”, said Daqqa, adding that the lack of documentation can limit the ability of lawyers to protect them and defend them in case they are rearranged.
While Al-Hadra had been sentenced to three years in prison, thousands of Palestinians are also detained by Israel in what is called “administrative detention”, a process by which Israel has prisoners without charges. Previously, a much smaller number of Israelis have also been detained in administrative detention, but the Israeli government has now declared that it will only be applied to the Palestinians.
Qassem Jaafra, another 18 -year -old among those published in late January, was one of those who were detained in administrative detention.
“I was only told half an hour before my release,” he said. “I lacked my family, friends and school, but it was also wrong to leave my friends close to prison.”
According to the Israeli Human Rights Organization B’tselem, more than 3,300 Palestinians are currently in administrative detention.
A report by the Euro-Med human rights instructor published earlier this month provided a scathing criticism of the detention system.
He concluded that Israeli prisons and detention centers constitute a “systematic framework intended intrinsically to torture and mistreat Palestinian prisoners and prisoners, while depriving them of their most fundamental human rights”.
The report also argued that the systematic ill-treatment of Palestinians are made possible by the long history of impunity that the United States and European governments benefit from, representing a serious violation of international standards of detention.
But despite the overwhelming challenges, hope persists.
As Al-Hadra concludes: “After the difficulties happens to easily.”
This article is published in collaboration with EGAB.