Hamas Prisoners Involved in Serious Offenses to Be Released in Israel-Gaza Ceasefire Agreement in Return for Hostages

Following the end of 471 days of captivity for the initial Israeli hostages, the IDF is preparing to release numerous Palestinian prisoners – some of whom have been involved in severe criminal activities.

Convicted murderers serving multiple life sentences are among those who could be freed as part of a landmark ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

Under the terms of a ceasefire agreement that paused the conflict in Gaza, masked Hamas militants armed with guns transferred the first trio of hostages to the Red Cross, albeit with a delayed commencement.

Hamas had provided the names of the first three Israeli hostages to be released as Brit Emily Damari, 28, Romi Gonen, 24, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31.

In the West Bank, currently under Israeli control, buses were on standby to transport Palestinian detainees who are set to be released from Israeli jails. As part of the agreement, Hamas revealed that the first batch of prisoners to be set free in exchange for the hostages consists of 69 women and 21 adolescent males.

The first phase of the truce in the 15-month-old war between Israel and Hamas took effect following a three-hour delay during which Israeli forces pounded the Gaza Strip, killing 13 people, according to Palestinian health authorities.

The truce calls for fighting to stop, aid to be sent in to Gaza and 33 of the 98 Israeli and foreign hostages still held there to go free over the six-week first phase in return for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

While a number of those due for release have been held on remand without charge, some are also serving multiple life sentences for murders or terror attacks. 

Zakaria Zubeidi, who was put behind bars in 2019 for his role in the shootings near Beit El in the West Bank, is among those set to be freed.

He is believed to have played a role in a number of terror attacks, including the Beit She’an bombing that killed six people in 2002.

The 49-year-old also broke out of Gilboa Prison in 2021 with five Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists but was hauled back behind bars days later.

Also due for release is Mahmud Abu Warda, who is serving 48 life sentences for plotting multiple terror attacks including in Jerusalem 1996 when 45 Israelis were killed in two bus bombings. 

Wissam Abbasi, Mohammad Odeh, and Wael Qassim, three members of the so-called Silwan Squadron, who were jailed in 2002 over a series of bombings that killed more than 30 Israelis in Jerusalem are also up for release.

Elsewhere, Israeli media is reporting that Khalida Jarrar, leader of the left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) will be freed.

He has spent much of the last decade behind bars, despite having not been convicted.

Marwan Barghouti, a former commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, who was jailed during the 2002 Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank, will not be released. 

But they have agreed to free his aide, Ahmed Barghouti, who was sentenced to 13 life sentences for his role in terror attacks in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem that claimed the lives of six people including a police officer. 

Another high-profile prisoner is Ahmed Saadat, the head of PFLP who was accused by Israel of ordering the assassination of Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Ze’evi in 2001.

The Justice Ministry initially decided there was not enough evidence to charge him for the killing. 

Palestinians poured into the streets to celebrate and return to the rubble of their bombed-out homes on Sunday as the ceasefire came into place.

Meanwhile live television pictures showed three female hostages exiting a vehicle surrounded by armed Hamas men. 

The hostages got into vehicles of the International Committee of the Red Cross as the crowd of fighters chanted the name of the armed wing of Hamas.

When the shooting stopped, Palestinians burst into the streets, some in celebration, others to visit the graves of relatives.

‘I feel like at last I found some water to drink after getting lost in the desert for 15 months. I feel alive again,’ Aya, a displaced woman from Gaza City who has been sheltering in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip for over a year, told Reuters via a chat app.

In the north of the territory, where some of the most intense Israeli airstrikes and battles with the militants took place, people picked their way on narrow roads through a devastated landscape of rubble and twisted metal.

Armed Hamas fighters drove through the southern city of Khan Younis with crowds cheering and chanting. Hamas policemen, dressed in blue police uniform, deployed in some areas after months of trying to keep out of sight to avoid Israeli strikes.

People who had gathered to cheer the fighters chanted ‘Greetings to Al-Qassam Brigades’ – the armed wing of Hamas.

‘All the resistance factions are staying in spite of Netanyahu,’ one fighter told Reuters. ‘This is a ceasefire, a full and comprehensive one God willing, and there will be no return to war in spite of him.’

The ceasefire agreement follows months of on-off negotiations brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the United States, and comes into effect on the eve of the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who had said there would be ‘hell to pay’ unless hostages were freed before he took office.

Once the first three hostages are returned on Sunday, Israel is expected to release the first Palestinian detainees under the deal. According to Hamas, the 90 Palestinians to go free on Sunday include 69 women and 21 teenage boys.

There is no detailed plan in place to govern Gaza after the war, much less rebuild it. Any return of Hamas to control in Gaza will test the commitment to the truce of Israel, which has said it will resume the war unless the militant group which has run the enclave since 2007 is fully dismantled.

Hardline National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir quit the cabinet on Sunday over the ceasefire, though his party said it would not try to bring down Netanyahu’s government. The other most prominent hardliner, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, remained in the government for now but said he would quit if the war ends without Hamas completely destroyed.

Trump’s national security adviser-designate, Mike Waltz, said that if Hamas reneges on the agreement, the United States will support Israel ‘in doing what it has to do.’

‘Hamas will never govern Gaza. That is completely unacceptable.’

The streets in shattered Gaza City in the north of the territory were already busy with groups of people waving the Palestinian flag and filming the scenes on their mobile phones. Several carts loaded with household possessions travelled down a thoroughfare scattered with rubble and debris.

Gaza City resident Ahmed Abu Ayham, 40, sheltering with his family in Khan Younis, said the scene of destruction in his home city was ‘dreadful’, adding that while the ceasefire may have spared lives it was no time for celebrations.

‘We are in pain, deep pain and it is time that we hug one another and cry.’

Long lines of trucks carrying fuel and aid supplies queued up at border crossings in the hours before the ceasefire was due to take effect. The World Food Programme said they began to cross on Sunday morning.

The deal requires 600 truckloads of aid to be allowed into Gaza every day of the initial six-week ceasefire, including 50 carrying fuel. Half of the 600 aid trucks would be delivered to Gaza’s north, where experts have warned famine is imminent.

The war between Israel and Hamas began after the militants stormed Israeli towns and villages on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

More than 47,000 Palestinians have since been killed in Israeli attacks that reduced the Gaza strip to a wasteland, according to medical officials in the enclave. Nearly the entire 2.3 million population of the enclave is homeless. Around 400 Israeli soldiers have also died.