JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Under the Gaza ceasefire deal, Israel has agreed to release Palestinians held in Israeli jails in return for freeing hostages taken by the militant group Hamas in their Oct. 7, 2023 attack.
There is no final agreement on which prisoners will be released in return for hostages, in part because it is unclear how many hostages will eventually be freed or how many are still alive.
There are currently 10,400 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, not including detainees arrested in Gaza during the last 15 months of conflict, according to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.
Below is a list of some of the most prominent Palestinian figures held in Israeli prisoners: HAMAS FIGURES:
ABDALLAH AL-BARGHOUTI Barghouti was sentenced to 67 life terms in 2004 by an Israeli military court for his involvement in a series of suicide attacks in 2001 and 2002 that killed dozens of Israelis. Barghouti prepared the explosive belts used in the attacks, including one on a Jerusalem Sbarro restaurant in which 15 people were killed, the Israeli army said. A father of three, he was born in Kuwait in 1972. In 1996, he moved with his family to live in Beit Rima village near Ramallah in the West Bank.
IBRAHIM HAMED Hamed, who was handed 54 life terms, was arrested in 2006 in Ramallah. He is accused by Israel of planning suicide attacks that killed dozens of Israelis. Hamed, who had been on Israel’s wanted list for eight years before his arrest, was the top West Bank commander of the Izz el-Deen Al-Qassam brigades, the Hamas military wing. He holds a degree in political science from Birzeit University near Ramallah. While he was a fugitive, Israel detained his wife for eight months and in 2003 demolished his house.
NAEL BARGHOUTI
Born in 1957, Barghouti has spent 44 years, or two-thirds of his 67-year life, incarcerated by Israel – longer than any other Palestinian and is known as the “dean” of Palestinian prisoners. He was first jailed in 1978 for taking part in an attack that killed an Israeli soldier in Jerusalem. He was first released in 2011 under an agreement by which Israel released more than 1,000 Palestinians in exchange for Gilad Shalit, a soldier abducted by Hamas militants in 2006. After his release in 2011, he married Eman Nafe, who had also spent 10 years in an Israeli jail accused of attempting to plan a suicide operation in Jaffa. Hamas accused Israel of breaching the deal when it rearrested Barghouti in 2014. During his first, 33-year stretch in jail, Barghouti’s parents and many other relatives died, Nafe said. Barghouti was a member of the armed wing of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah Movement when he was given his life sentence in 1978. Later, he joined Hamas, the Islamist militant group founded in 1987.
HASSAN SALAMA Born in Gaza’s Khan Younis refugee camp in 1971, Salama was convicted of orchestrating a wave of suicide bombings in Israel in 1996 that killed dozens of Israelis and wounded hundreds more. He was sentenced to 48 life terms in jail. Salama said the attacks were a response to the assassination of Hamas bombmaker Yahya Ayyash in 1996. Salama was arrested in Hebron in the West Bank later that year. NON-HAMAS FIGURES:
MARWAN AL-BARGHOUTI – FATAH
A leading member of the Fatah movement, Barghouti is seen as a possible successor to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. He made his name as a leader and organiser in both of the Intifadas, or uprisings, waged by the Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1987. He was arrested in 2002, charged with orchestrating gun ambushes and suicide bombings and sentenced to five life terms in 2004. Fatah officials have said that he set up the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the Fatah armed wing, on Arafat’s orders.
AHMED SAADAT – PFLP
Saadat, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was accused by Israel of ordering the assassination of Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi in 2001. Pursued by Israel, he took shelter at the Ramallah headquarters of Arafat. Under a deal with the Palestinian Authority in 2002, Saadat stood trial in a Palestinian court and was incarcerated at a Palestinian Authority jail, where he was held under international supervision. The Israeli military seized Saadat in 2006 following the withdrawal of the foreign monitors. Put on trial in a military court, the charges against him included involvement in a militant group, weapons dealing and deadly attacks. However the justice ministry decided there was not enough evidence to charge him with Zeevi’s assassination. He was sentenced to 30 years in jail in 2008.
(Editing by Ros Russell)
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