While Hamas prepares to hand over the first of 33 Israeli hostages set for release as part of the latest ceasefire negotiation, Israel will, at the same time, begin releasing scores of Palestinian prisoners from its jails,including convicted murderers.
The 42-day peace agreement, which begins today with the release of 90 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for three Israeli hostages, will eventually see up to 1,904 prisoners and detainees freed as part of the decision reached early Saturday morning. While a number of those due for release have been held on remand without charge, among them are also those serving multiple life sentences for deadly terror attacks and murder.
According to Reuters, the prisoners set to be released on the first day of the ceasefire do not include any prominent detainees, and many were recently detained and not tried or convicted.
Palestinian leader of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Zakaria Zubeidi is held on shoulders by supporters of the militant group, linked to the mainstream Fatah movement, in the West bank town of Jenin 30 December 2004. Zubeidi is due to be freed from Israeli prison as part of the ceasefire deal beginning 19 January, 2025. (Photo by YURI CORTEZ / AFP) (Photo by YURI CORTEZ/AFP via Getty Images)
Zakaria Zubeidi, detained in 2019 for his role in the shootings near Beit El in the West Bank, is on the list of those set for release. Zubeidi, 49, is believed to have been involved in numerous terror attacks, including the Beit She’an bombing that killed six people at the Likud party branch in 2002, during the peak of the 2000-2005 Second Intifada. Zubeidi broke out of Gilboa Prison in 2021 along with five Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists but was taken back into custody days later. In September, an Israeli drone strike killed Zubeidi’s son, Mohammad, who the Israeli military called a “significant terrorist” and said he had been involved in shooting at Israeli troops.
Also set to be released is Mahmud Abu Warda, who is serving 48 life sentences for planning and executing multiple terror attacks, including the 1996 murder of 45 Israelis in two bus bombings in Jerusalem.
Mohammed Abu Warda is responsible for the murder of 45 Israelis in two horrific bombings on Bus 18 in Jerusalem in 1996.
Abu Warda should have rotted in prison for the rest of his life for his unspeakable crimes—yet he is set to be released at the hostage deal.
In 2004, he… pic.twitter.com/LiJNCRIFa4
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) January 18, 2025
Wissam Abbasi, Mohammad Odeh, and Wael Qassim of the so-called Silwan Squadron, jailed in 2002 in connection to a string of bombings that killed over 30 Israelis in crowded civilian areas of Jerusalem during the Second Intifada, are also listed for release. The three men were given life sentences for murder and a series of other crimes, according to Israel’s justice ministry.
Israeli media has also reported that Khalida Jarrar, a leader in the left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, will be released as part of the exchange. Jarrar, 62, was elected to the PLC in 2006 and has continued to serve as an elected representative since but has spent much of the last decade in and out of Israeli prison, despite having not been convicted of direct involvement in the Popular Front’s military activities. In recent years she has been held mainly without formal charges.
Khalida Jarrar, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), is set to be released as part of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas beginning 19 January, 2025. (AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images)
While Israel is refusing to release Marwan Barghouti, a former commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades who was detained during the 2002 Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank, they have agreed to release his aide, Ahmed Barghouti, who was also detained during Operation Defensive Shield, serving at the time as a senior military official in Fatah.
The latter Barghouti was sentenced to 13 life sentences in Israel for involvement in terror attacks in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem that killed six people, including a police officer.
According to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, there are currently 10,400 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, though that figure has not been updated to include people arrested in Gaza during the last 15 months.
As of Saturday morning, the Justice Ministry published the names of 737 male, female and teen-aged prisoners, some of whom are members of militant groups convicted of attacks that killed dozens of Israelis, to allow petitions against their release to be submitted to the High Court.
The other 1,167 are Palestinians detained in the Gaza Strip since the start of the IDF’s ground offensive and who did not participate in Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israeli communities.
