RAMALLAH, West Financial institution — Israel on Saturday is releasing 183 Palestinian prisoners within the newest trade for Israeli hostages held in Gaza, a part of a ceasefire that has paused the battle however whose future is unsure.
Israel views the safety prisoners as terrorists, whereas Palestinians see them as freedom fighters resisting a decades-long navy occupation.
Practically each Palestinian has a pal or member of the family who has been jailed by Israel in some unspecified time in the future, for militant assaults or lesser offenses like rock-throwing, protesting or membership in a banned political group. Some are held for months or years with out trial in what is named administrative detention, which Israel says is required to forestall assaults and keep away from sharing delicate intelligence.
Eighteen of these launched Saturday had been sentenced to life and 54 have been serving lengthy sentences for his or her involvement in lethal assaults towards Israelis. Seven of these convicted of probably the most severe crimes can be transferred to Egypt forward of additional deportation.
Amongst these being launched are 111 Palestinians who have been rounded up after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, assault on southern Israel, which triggered the battle. They’ve been detained with out trial.
Right here’s a have a look at some outstanding Palestinian prisoners launched for the reason that truce went into impact on Jan. 19.
Abu Shakhdam, 49, was sentenced to the equal of 18 life sentences over his involvement in Hamas assaults that killed dozens of Israelis through the second intifada, or Palestinian rebellion, between 2000 and 2005.
Among the many most notorious of these assaults was a double suicide bombing that blew up two buses within the southern Israeli metropolis of Beersheba in 2004, killing 16 Israelis, together with a 4-year-old, and wounding over 100 others. In interviews with Arabic media, he described his militancy as a want for revenge stemming from his brother’s killing by Israeli safety forces in 2000.
Abu Shakhdam was on the run for weeks earlier than his arrest in his hometown of Hebron within the West Financial institution in November 2004, following a gunfight with Israeli safety forces through which he was shot 10 occasions.
Throughout 21 years in jail, his household stated, he completed highschool and earned a certificates for programs in psychology.
Al-Tawil, 61, a outstanding Hamas politician within the occupied West Financial institution, has spent practically 20 years out and in of Israeli jail, partly over allegations that he helped plot suicide bombings.
Most not too long ago, the Israeli navy arrested al-Tawil 2021, saying that he had participated in violent riots and mobilized Hamas political activists in Ramallah, the seat of the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority and Hamas’ principal rival.
He had been held with out cost or trial since then. After his arrest, he went on starvation strike for greater than three weeks to protest his administrative detention.
Throughout one in all al-Tawil’s stints in Israeli jail within the early 2000s, he ran a profitable electoral marketing campaign from custody to turn out to be mayor of Al-Bireh, a West Financial institution city abutting Ramallah.
U.S. court docket paperwork from 2007, filed by the households of Israelis killed through the second intifada, present that al-Tawil had served for years as chairman of Al-Islah Charitable Society, a entrance group to boost cash for Hamas. The case accused al-Tawil of recruiting a Hamas militant to hold out a 2001 suicide bombing that focused a crowded pedestrian mall in Jerusalem, killing 11 folks.
His daughter, 32-year-old journalist Bushra al-Tawil, was among the many dozens of girls and youngsters launched within the first spherical of prisoner-for-hostage exchanges on Jan. 19.
He and one other prisoner have been instantly taken to a hospital for medical therapy after their launch on Saturday.
The Palestinian supervisor of the Gaza department of World Imaginative and prescient, a significant Christian assist group, was arrested in 2016 and accused of diverting tens of tens of millions of {dollars} to Hamas in a high-profile case that drew criticism from rights teams. He was freed on Feb. 1.
Each el-Halabi, 47, and World Imaginative and prescient vigorously denied the allegations and impartial investigations discovered no proof of wrongdoing. One impartial audit discovered that el-Halabi had enforced inner controls and ordered workers to keep away from anybody suspected of Hamas ties.
Rights teams say el-Halabi was denied a good and clear trial, as he and World Imaginative and prescient had no probability to assessment the proof towards them. U.N. consultants say el-Halabi was questioned for 50 days with out entry to a lawyer. He was sentenced to 12 years in jail.
Israel has attributed the closed hearings to delicate safety data being relayed.
Amouri, 44, from the northern West Financial institution metropolis of Jenin, was arrested for his alleged function in manufacturing the highly effective automobile bomb that detonated beside an Israeli bus full of passengers on June 5, 2002, killing 17 Israelis in what grew to become generally known as the Megiddo Junction suicide bombing.
The assault through the second intifada befell in northern Israel. The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad claimed accountability.
Amouri was sentenced to life in jail, plus 20 years. He was amongst these transferred to Egypt on Feb. 1 and launched into exile.
Zakaria Zubeidi is a outstanding former militant chief and theater director whose dramatic jailbreak in 2021 thrilled Palestinians throughout the Center East and surprised the Israeli safety institution.
Zubeidi was a senior militant within the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade within the city Jenin refugee camp within the West Financial institution. After the second intifada in 2006, he co-founded a theater in Jenin to advertise what he described as cultural resistance to Israel. The Freedom Theater has placed on every little thing from Shakespeare to stand-up comedy to performs written by residents.
In 2019, after Zubeidi had already served years in jail for assaults within the early 2000s, Israel arrested him once more over his alleged involvement in capturing assaults that focused buses of Israeli settlers however induced no accidents.
Zubeidi, who was launched on Jan. 30 into the West Financial institution, had been awaiting trial in jail. He denies the costs, saying that he gave up militancy to deal with his political activism after the intifada.
In 2021, he and 5 different prisoners tunneled out of a maximum-security jail in northern Israel. All six have been recaptured days later.
A Hamas militant through the second intifada, Abu Warda helped manage a collection of suicide bombings that killed over 40 folks and wounded greater than 100 others. Israel arrested him in 2002, and sentenced him to 48 phrases of lifetime imprisonment, among the many longest sentences it ever issued.
As a younger scholar, Abu Warda joined Hamas initially of the intifada following Israel’s killing of Yahya Ayyash, the militant group’s main bomb maker, in 1996.
Palestinian authorities stated on the time that Abu Warda had helped to recruit suicide bombers, whose assaults focusing on crowded civilian areas in Israeli cities killed scores of individuals within the early 2000s.
Abu Warda was launched and deported on Jan. 30.
An activist in Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Aradeh was sentenced to life in jail for a variety of offenses going again to the second intifada. Among the fees, in response to the Israeli Jail Service, included planting an explosive gadget and tried homicide.
He was credited with plotting the extraordinary jail escape in 2021, when he and 5 different detainees, together with Zubeidi, used spoons to tunnel out one in all Israel’s most safe prisons. They remained at massive for days earlier than being caught.
From an impoverished and politically energetic household in Jenin, within the northern occupied West Financial institution, Aradeh has three brothers and a sister who’ve all spent years in Israeli prisons.
He was welcomed as a kind of cult hero in Ramallah on Jan. 25 as household, associates and followers swarmed him, some chanting “The liberty tunnel!” in reference to his jailbreak.
All three males hail from the neighborhood of Silwan, in east Jerusalem, and rose throughout the ranks of Hamas. Held chargeable for a string of lethal assaults through the second intifada, the boys have been handed a number of life sentences in 2002.
They have been accused of plotting a suicide bombing at a crowded pool corridor close to Tel Aviv in 2002 that killed 15 folks. Later that yr, they have been discovered to have orchestrated a bombing at Hebrew College that killed 9 folks, together with 5 American college students. Israel had described Odeh, who was working as a painter on the college on the time, because the architect of the assault.
All three have been transferred to Egypt on Jan. 25. Their households reside in Jerusalem and stated they’ll be a part of them in exile.
The 67-year-old al-Tous had held the title of longest steady Israeli imprisonment till his launch final Saturday, Palestinian authorities stated.
First arrested in 1985 whereas combating Israeli forces alongside the Jordanian border, the activist within the Fatah get together spent a complete of 39 years behind bars. Initially from the West Financial institution metropolis of Bethlehem, he was among the many prisoners exiled on Jan. 25.
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