The Israeli-occupied West Bank erupted in celebrations after the release of 90 Palestinian prisoners, most of them women, from Israeli jails as part of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
West Bank families waited early Monday to receive their loved ones, most of whom had been detained without charge.
The ceasefire, which ended more than 15 months of Israeli war against Gaza, also resulted in the release of three Israeli captives. Other captives and prisoners are expected to be released in the coming weeks.
Here is what we know about the released Palestinian prisoners:
Who are the prominent freed Palestinians?
The prisoners – 69 women and 21 children – were released around 1 a.m. Monday (11 p.m. GMT Sunday). They were taken to Ramallah, in the West Bank, in Red Cross buses.
Only eight of the 90 prisoners were arrested before October 7, 2023, when Palestinian groups led by Hamas carried out attacks in southern Israel. The attacks killed more than 1,100 people, took around 250 prisoners and sparked Israel’s war on Gaza.
Israel has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians during its offensive on Gaza, drawing criticism for its disproportionate use of force against civilians and for targeting hospitals and schools. It has also killed more than 850 Palestinians and arrested more than 7,000 people in often violent raids across the West Bank.
Khalida Jarrar, leader of the left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and feminist activist, was one of the most prominent prisoners released.
Jarrar has been serving prison sentences in Israel since 2015 for defending the rights of Palestinian prisoners and for being affiliated with an “outlaw” party. The PFLP is considered a “terrorist” group by Israel.
In a 2016 statement, New York-based Human Rights Watch said Jarrar’s repeated arrests were part of Israel’s broader crackdown on nonviolent political opposition to its half-century of military occupation. Palestinian lands.
His most recent arrest was on December 26, 2023.
The first arrest of a Palestinian took place in March 1989, during an International Women’s Day demonstration at Birzeit University in the West Bank. She was a master’s student at the time.
Jarrar became a feminist leader by fighting gender stereotypes and working to empower women entrepreneurs in the West Bank. She did community work in Nablus, helping to clean public spaces and improve public schools. She was later elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council.
She was director of the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association from 1994 to 2006.
“There is this double feeling in which we live: on the one hand, this feeling of freedom for which we thank everyone and, on the other hand, this pain of losing so many Palestinian martyrs,” Jarrar told the Associated Press news agency after she was released.
Another prominent freed prisoner is journalist Rula Hassanein, editor-in-chief of the Ramallah-based Wattan Media Network. She was arrested by Israeli forces on March 19 as part of mass arrests of Palestinians.
Hassanein, 30, was tried before an Israeli military court at Israel’s Ofer prison. She was accused of inciting hatred on social media for posts that allegedly included retweets about X and for expressing frustration over the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.
How many more prisoners will be released?
The first phase of the three-phase ceasefire is scheduled to last 42 days. Meanwhile, 33 Israeli captives are to be released, including civilian women and soldiers as well as children and elderly civilians.
In exchange, up to 1,900 Palestinian prisoners are to be released.
On the first day of the exchange, three Israeli captives were released from Gaza: Romi Gonen, 24, Emily Damari, 28, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31.
Before their release, there were around 100 prisoners remaining in Gaza. It is unknown how many are still alive.
The remaining prisoners, in addition to the 33 scheduled for release in the first phase, are believed to be male soldiers who are expected to be released in exchange for an unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners.
How many Palestinians are in Israeli prisons?
Before the release of the 90 prisoners on Monday, there were 10,400 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, not counting those held in Gaza during the last 15 months of war, according to the Palestinian Commission for Detainee and Ex-Detainee Affairs and the Society of Prisoners. Palestinian prisoners.
“If they do very little to challenge the status quo, they risk a prison sentence,” according to Tel Aviv Tribune’s Nida Ibrahim. Ibrahim said many children have been imprisoned by Israel on charges related to throwing stones at Israeli forces.
“The list of prisoners, the hundreds of names that have been published, are mostly in administrative detention, which is a tactic used by Israel to keep people in prison indefinitely without charge,” Ibrahim said.
Prison conditions
“I left hell and now I am in heaven. We are all out of hell. They raped us, beat us, fired tear gas at us,” Abdelaziz Atawneh, a boy released from an Israeli prison, told the media.
“There is no food, no sweets, no salt,” he said.
Israeli prisons are notorious for the mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners and observers have commented on Jarrar’s frail appearance compared to his appearance at the time of his last arrest.
United Nations agencies, investigators and human rights organizations have documented arbitrary arrests, inhumane and degrading treatment, torture and deaths of Palestinians in Israeli custody.
On the other hand, the captives released and sent to Israel appear to be in good health, Israeli media report.
The three captives, “along with their mothers, have just landed in a hospital, where they will reunite with the rest of their families and receive medical care,” the Israeli army said in a statement. The three freed captives are at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv.
In April, Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, head of the orthopedic department at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, died in Israel’s Ofer prison. His family said al-Bursh was tortured to death.
“The release of Palestinian prisoners, particularly women and children, does not mean that the conditions of captivity have changed. Israeli negotiators insisted that nothing would change in Israeli prisons,” Basil Farraj, assistant professor at Birzeit University, told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“It is indeed very worrying, and this explains why the families gathered to welcome the loved ones because they know that the hell that (the prisoners) went through is brutal.”
Farraj added: “This shows that this prison regime aims to break Palestinian prisoners. This intentionally attempts to break their spirit and soul.
