There were “chaotic but joyous” scenes in Ramallah yesterday as more than 100 Palestinian prisoners were freed from Israel’s Ofer prison as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal.
The freed prisoners were “met by a huge crowd” in the city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, who’d “gathered to welcome their release”, said the BBC.
Who are they?
The West Bank “erupted in celebrations” earlier this month after 90 Palestinian prisoners – 69 women and 21 children – were released from Israeli jails, said Al Jazeera. Only eight of them had been arrested before 7 October 2023, the day of the Hamas attacks on Israel.
Yesterday, the released prisoners were all men, ranging in age from 15 to 69, and some of them had been convicted of serious terror offences.
Why were they jailed?
Among those released yesterday was Zakaria Zubeidi, the former leader of a Palestinian militant group who was jailed for attacks that killed several Israelis.
So was Abu Warda, who helped organise a series of suicide bombings that killed more than 40 people and wounded more than 100 others. He’d been arrested in 2002 and sentenced to 48 terms of life imprisonment, among the longest jail terms Israel has ever handed down.
Earlier this month, Khalida Jarrar, leader of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and a feminist activist, was one of the most prominent prisoners released. She’d served jail terms in Israel since 2015 for “being vocal about Palestinian prisoner rights” and being affiliated with an “outlawed” party that is considered a “terrorist” group by Israel, said Al Jazeera.
Rula Hassanein, an editor for the Ramallah-based Wattan Media Network, was also set free. The 30-year-old had been tried by an Israeli military court, charged with incitement on social media over posts that reportedly included her “expression of frustration” over the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.
What happens to them now
“Scores” of Palestinians “thronged” the buses carrying released prisoners into Ramallah yesterday, said PBS News. Some were “offering wreaths of flowers in the colours of the Palestinian flag” and “warm jackets” for the men “hoisted on the shoulders of supporters”.
Some of the prisoners convicted of particularly serious crimes are not being allowed to return to the occupied Palestinian territories by the Israelis. Instead they’re being sent to Egypt and other neighbouring countries.
Why are so many Palestinian children in Israeli jails?
The release of Palestinian child prisoners brought into focus Israel’s “systematic” prosecution of Palestinian children in military courts, said Al Jazeera.
It is claimed that 320 children were being held in Israeli prisons before the latest prisoner exchanges, and an estimated 10,000 Palestinian children have been held in Israeli military detention over the past 20 years, according to rights groups.
In 2016, Israel introduced a new law allowing children between the ages of 12 and 14 to be held criminally responsible, so they could be tried in court as adults and be handed prison sentences. The reform came after Ahmad Manasra was arrested in 2015 at the age of 13 and charged with attempted murder.