The names of the four female Israeli soldiers who will be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners on Saturday have been released by Hamas.
It is the second of such exchanges that take place during the first two phases of a three-stage ceasefire agreed this month.
Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag were all taken prisoner on October 7, 2023, during Hamas-led assaults on army outposts and villages in southern Israel. They will now be exchanged for 200 of the approximately 1,800 Palestinian prisoners awaiting release from Israeli jails in the first six-week phase of the Hamas-Israel ceasefire, which took effect on Sunday.
Under the terms of the deal, Israel agreed to release 50 Palestinian prisoners for every Israeli soldier held in Gaza and 30 for every other female captive during the first phase of the ceasefire. The remaining captives will be released during the second phase of the deal, negotiations for which are expected to begin on February 4.
A third phase aims to focus on the reconstruction and long-term governance of Gaza.
What do we know about Israeli soldiers that should be published?
Ariev, 20, was serving at the Nahal Oz army base, about 1 km (0.6 mile) from the Gaza border at the time of his kidnapping. In July – hoping to put pressure on the Israeli government, which many of the captives’ families said was blocking their release – his parents released an image provided to them by Hamas purporting to show Ariev at during his first days of captivity.
In the undated image, Ariev can be seen sitting with her head bandaged alongside Albag, Agam Berger and Gilboa, who also had a bandage on her head.
She was later identified by her parents from a video posted on Telegram that day by Hamas. His kidnapping was confirmed by the Israeli army approximately 48 hours later
Gilboa, 20, was also at the base of Nahal Oz. Gilboa was featured in a video released by Hamas in July, appealing to the Israeli government to bring her and the other captives home.
Levy, 19 at the time of her capture and now 20, had just begun her military service when Hamas attacked, the BBC cited her mother. Hours after her kidnapping, she appeared in a Hamas video that showed her being bundled into a jeep.
Albag, 19, served as an army guard at the Nahal Oz base. It was believed by her family that she was hiding from a rocket barrage in a field shelter during the Hamas-led attack. Albag was later identified in a video telegram of captives released by Hamas that day.
Of the female soldiers taken, only Berger, 21, will remain in captivity if Saturday’s exchange goes as planned. On Sunday, three other soldiers were released in the initial exchange.
What was the response to the first prisoner exchange?
It was mixed.
Many people in the occupied West Bank celebrated the release of 90 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails early Monday – 69 women and 21 children. Many people showed their elation at getting together with family members and friends. Crowds carried freed prisoners overhead as cheers and whistles accompanied them.
Amanda Abu Sharkh, 23, had come just to see the arrival in Ramallah of the Red Cross buses carrying the prisoners. “We came here to witness it and feel the emotions, just like the families of the prisoners who are released today,” Abu Sharkh told the AFP news agency.
“All the prisoners released today feel like family to us. They are part of us, even if they are not blood relatives,” she said.
By contrast, the intense relief of many Israelis over Sunday’s return of Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari was mixed with the anger and resentment of a large minority who saw the exchange as a defeat. in Israel’s war against Gaza, which killed at least 47,283 Palestinians.
In the West Bank, the Israeli army began a raid Tuesday in the town and refugee camp of Jenin, and exasperated Israeli settlers targeted six villages they had identified as where freed Palestinian women and children come, attacking houses, shops, cars and buses with fire bombs.
Why did Israeli forces order Palestinians not to celebrate outings?
They were worried about what it would look like.
There have been several reports of Palestinian prisoners visiting the homes, removing flags, signs and candy and ejecting anyone, including journalists, who are not close family members. Samples between journalists covering Palestinian delight in raising family members have also been reported.
Family members of released prisoners were also reportedly summoned to police stations and warned about organizing celebrations or marches to mark their releases. Family members also told Israel’s Haaretz newspaper that they had been asked by police not to comment on the outings on social media or grant media interviews.
Israeli determination to prevent the exchange from being framed as a defeat also extended to the prisoners themselves. Rula Hassanein, who was released on Monday, described how the women were forced to kneel on the ground for hours before being released and watched a 90-second looping video that told them: “This It’s not a victory for you. We have destroyed and killed in Gaza, in Yemen, in Syria, in Iran. We killed (your) leadership,” she recalls.
“We weren’t allowed to look left or right, only at the screen,” she told CNN.
Why were the Palestinian prisoners arrested?
According to the Israeli NGO Hamoked, arrested by Israeli authorities for any infraction, no matter how slight, is routine for Palestinians.
According to a 2017 report by the Adameer Prisoners’ Rights Association, 40% of all male Palestinians have been arrested at various times by Israeli forces.
Hamoked said this month that 10,221 Palestinians had been imprisoned by Israel, including 3,376 held in administrative detention. Administrative detention allows Israeli authorities to detain prisoners for indefinite periods without charge or, in some cases, without even explaining what they are being detained for.
Dania Hanatsheh was among many released Monday who had been held in administrative detention. “Palestinian families are ready to be arrested at any time,” Hanatsheh, who said she never said why she was detained, told US-based ABC News. “You feel helpless, like there’s nothing you can do to protect yourself.”
Under what conditions are Palestinian prisoners held?
The lands.
Shatha Jarabaa, 24, who was arrested in August for a social media post that Israeli authorities considered “incitement” told the UK’s Guardian newspaper that she had lost 14kg (31lb) for five months of imprisonment.
“The treatment in prison was so bad,” she told the newspaper. “Each prisoner only had one outfit. It was very cold inside the detention center. The rain would fall on us inside the cells. My arrest was illogical and unjustified. The charge was incitement and support for terrorist organizations due to the publication of Quranic verses on social media.
“It was a way to imprison as many women as possible from the prisoners inside Gaza and exchange them for the Israeli hostages. We were also hostages because we were imprisoned against our will without any credible charges. »
The Israeli prison system and the conditions in which Palestinians are held have been the subject of sharp criticism from rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Israel’s B’tselem.
Several rapes were reported during the war. In August, many of Israel’s top politicians took to the streets to defend soldiers who had been prison guards against accusations of raping a Palestinian detainee. A few months later, in November, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese described prominent Palestinian surgeon Adnan al-Bursh as having been “raped to death.”
Probably raped to death.
A doctor. A stellar surgeon. The embodiment of Palestinian ethics.
Probably raped to death.The racism of the Western media who do not cover this, and the Western politicians who do not denounce this, with the thousand other testimonies and… pic.twitter.com/irpcsi9nvz
– Francesca Albanese, an OPT Special Rapporteur (@Franceskalbs) November 18, 2024
At the time of his death, Dr. Al-Bursh was being held at Ober Prison near Ramallah, the same facility where many of the women and children released this week had taken place.
In its August report on the Israeli prison system titled Welcome to Hell, B’tselem documented the treatment of Palestinians in more than a dozen converted prison facilities since the outbreak of war in October 2023 in that the The NGO described it as “a network of camps dedicated to the abuse of political detainees.”