In exchange for the four Israeli women soldiers held hostage by Hamas since October 7, 2024, Tel Aviv has released 200 Palestinian security prisoners.
As per the ceasefire agreement inked by the two sides, Israel has to release 50 Palestinians for each women soldier. Among the 200 people aged between 16 and 67, 120 prisoners were sentenced to life.
In Israel, four female soldiers reunited with their families in exchange for 200 Palestinian prisoners, while jubilant crowds in the West Bank and Gaza celebrated https://t.co/nGO4XtFHDi pic.twitter.com/IYW07xUeWC
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 25, 2025
Palestinians whose offences were considered serious were sent to Egypt while others were released into West Bank. Among these, 70 were deported to Egypt while 114 prisoners from Ofer Prison were taken to Ramallah and 16 to Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing.
Who are the Palestinian prisoners released by Israel?
The Palestinians released by Israel on Saturday included Hamas operatives and members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The prominent among these include the Abu Hamid brothers from the Al-Amari refugee camp in West Bank's Ramallah. The brothers — Nasser, 51, Sharif, 48, and Mohammad, 44 — were serving life and convicted for militant attacks on Israelis in 2002.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad activist Mohammed Aradeh was convicted for allegedly planting a bomb and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was also charged over offences from the second intifada in the early 2000s.
Mohammad al-Tous, 67, who spent 39 years in Israeli prison, is the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner. He was first arrested in 1985 when he was fighting Israeli forces on Jordanian border. He was deported to Egypt on Saturday though he is originally from West Bank.
Raed Al-Saadi, 57, was another Palestinian who has been imprisoned in Israel since 1989 for killing IDF soldiers and civilians. He was earlier supposed to be released in 2014 in a previous prisoner swap deal.
Fatah prisoner Yasser Abu Bakr spoke to Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas after his release. He was sentenced to 115 years for murdering a nine-month-old baby and two other people.
Aradeh, 42, made headlines when he and five others escaped from a heavily secured Israeli prison by digging a tunnel using spoons. They were eventually caught. When he was released on Saturday, his friends chanted, "The freedom tunnel", referring to his prison break.
Azmi Nafaa, one of the Palestinians, released on Saturday, was serving a 20-year prison sentence for trying mow down Israeli soldiers with his vehicle at a checkpoint in 2015.
