The Hamas official expected that the negotiations to release these male Israeli soldiers during the second phase of the deal would be “difficult and arduous. But Israel can make it easier.” [Getty]
The issue of prominent Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails nearly derailed the negotiations in the final moments before reaching a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel, which took effect on 19 January 2025.
At the time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed, with no evidence, in a statement issued by his office on 16 January that Hamas was “backtracking on parts” of the ceasefire agreement, but Hamas quickly denied and affirmed its commitment to the agreement.
When Hamas led an attack on Israeli military bases and civilian settlements on 7 October 2023, and managed to capture 250 Israeli military figures and civilians, the Islamist movement sought to pressure Israel to release all the thousands of Palestinian prisoners, most notably Palestinian leaders such as Marwan Barghouti, a prominent figure in the Fatah movement.
A Hamas official in Istanbul told The New Arab, on condition of anonymity, that his movement’s delegation made great efforts throughout the months of the war to extract Israeli approval to release prominent prisoners under the exchange deal, but Israel strongly refused.
The official noted that Israel had requested the release of male soldiers held captive by Hamas as part of the first phase of the agreement, but Hamas had stipulated the release of prominent Palestinian prisoners in return, but again, Israel refused.
Who are the six prominent figures in Israeli prison?
The Hamas official said that Hamas was seeking the release of six prominent prisoners from Israeli prisons, namely Marwan Barghouti, who was sentenced to life in prison for supporting resistance operations during the Second Intifada; Ahmed Saadat, Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; Abdullah Barghouti, a Jordanian engineer of Palestinian origin, who had the longest prison sentence in the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, amounting to 67 life sentences, for his responsibility for a series of bombings that took place inside Israel between 2000-2003; as well as, Hassan Salameh, Abbas al-Sayed, and Ibrahim Hamed, the most prominent Hamas military leaders sentenced to life in prison for being behind many resistance operations, which Israel refused to release as part of a prior prisoner exchange deal in 2011.
According to the terms of the current ceasefire deal, Hamas will release 33 Israeli prisoners during the first phase, including women, children, and the elderly, and in return Israel will release hundreds of Palestinians, including all women and children.
Throughout the months of the recent genocidal war, Israel announced that Barghouti would not be released as part of the prisoner exchange deal with Hamas, but Hamas seeks to repeat the experience of the Shalit deal in 2011, during which Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and more than 1,000 other Palestinian prisoners were liberated.
Hamas still holds the strongest card to release more and more valuable Palestinian prisoners, including Palestinian leaders, during the negotiations for the ceasefire deal’s second phase: Israeli male soldiers it holds captive, most notably Asaf Hamami, a colonel in the Israeli army and commander of the Southern Brigade in the Gaza Division.
“The Israeli military [figure] is enough to release Barghouti and even all Palestinians in Israeli prisons,” the Hamas official remarked to TNA.
A ‘difficult and arduous’ process
The Hamas official expected that the negotiations to release these male Israeli soldiers during the second phase of the deal would be “difficult and arduous. But Israel can make it easier.”
He further pointed out that Israel “is pressuring not to give Hamas the right to choose the names of the Palestinian prisoners to be released,” noting that the Egyptian mediators expressed their lack of optimism about Israel accepting the release of the six prisoners that Hamas is demanding.
The Hamas official explained that the Egyptian and Qatari mediators floated the idea to both parties to deport the prisoners that Israel refuses to release in order to overcome this problem, noting that this proposal is still under study by the Islamic movement and has yet to receive approval by either Hamas or Israel.
“The issue of releasing the six prisoners generates great fear among Gaza Strip‘s residents that it will cause the failure of the second phase negotiations and the resumption of the war again,” Talal Okal, a writer in the local Al-Ayyam newspaper, told TNA.
Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu claimed on 17 January that Israel had received guarantees from US presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump a return to fighting if the second phase of the deal failed.
Okal noted that Hamas would not easily give up its opportunity to release the six prisoners, “but will continue to pressure Israel to release them, which will increase the possibility of Israel resuming the war.”
For his part, Israeli affairs expert Wadih Abu Nassar remarked to TNA,”Israel insists on refusing to release [Marwan] Barghouti because he is a figure accepted by all Palestinian factions, and this would strengthen unity and end Palestinian division.”
“I believe that Barghouti may be the transitional figure that the Palestinian political system desperately needs, and he may make radical changes in the Palestinian Authority, especially with regard to security coordination with Israel,” he added.
Abu Nassar opined that he ruled out the suspension of the ceasefire talk’s second phase due to this problem, arguing, “I believe that the mediators, including the new US administration, will not allow the war to resume in any way.”
