Israel released 200 Palestinian prisoners on Saturday in exchange for four soldiers who had been held hostage by Hamas. Dozens of prisoners had served life sentences in Israeli prisons for attacks against Israelis.
The Israeli Prison Service said in a statement that the prisoners had been released from Ofer prison near the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank and from another facility near Beersheba in southern Israel.
Israelis consider them terrorists, while many Palestinians say they have waged legitimate resistance to Israeli rule or see them as victims of Israel’s decades-long occupation.
Hundreds of Palestinians gathered at a municipal building in Ramallah to welcome the prisoners home, pushing to pick up their loved ones as they exited the Red Cross buses that were transporting them.
Some released prisoners, still wearing gray uniforms apparently issued by the Israeli prison authority, were held on the shoulders of the singing crowd.
“We leave our prison, but the price is high for our freedom,” Mohammad Arda, one of the freed prisoners, told reporters as family and friends huddled around him. “I’m thinking about the families of the inmates we’ve lost over the past year and a half.”
On Sunday, Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners, mostly women and minors, in exchange for three female hostages. This time, Israeli authorities are freeing many people who have been convicted of much more serious crimes, including the killing of Israeli civilians in militant attacks.
According to the Israeli government, Arda – a Palestinian Islamic jihad activist – had been sentenced to life in prison for attempted murder and planting an explosive device, among other crimes. He was one of six prisoners who briefly escaped from an Israeli prison in 2021, stunning Israelis and Palestinians, before being captured.
More than 1,500 Palestinians jailed by Israel are expected to be released as part of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement and hostage release. Hamas pledged to release 33 hostages; 97 were held in Gaza when the agreement took effect last Sunday, according to Israeli authorities.
About 120 of the Palestinian prisoners released on Saturday were serving life sentences for involvement in attacks against Israelis, according to lists provided by the Hamas-linked prisoners’ office. Under the terms of the deal, around 70 will be expelled from Israeli territory to Hamas-controlled areas of the Gaza Strip or abroad to countries such as Egypt.
On Saturday, those being released included Mohammad Odeh, Wael Qassim and Wissam Abbasi, who were arrested in 2002 for a series of deadly bombings targeting Israelis in crowded civilian areas. All three were serving life sentences for their involvement in the attacks.
One of the group’s most infamous attacks – which took place at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem – killed nine people, including five Americans.
The three men are all scheduled to be exiled abroad and will never be able to return to their homes in Jerusalem, under the terms of the agreement.