The agreement concluded between Israel and Hamas provides for the release of one hostage for every three Palestinian prisoners. It thus provides for the exchange of 50 hostages for 150 prisoners held in Israel. So far 39 hostages have been returned and 117 prisoners have left the jails of the Jewish state. But who are these Palestinian detainees? Overview of some figures who took advantage of the agreement to reconnect with freedom.
Israa Jaabis, the big burn victim
Israa Jaabis is probably the most famous released prisoner. The 39-year-old woman was sentenced to eleven years in prison for detonating a gas cylinder she was carrying in the trunk of her car at a roadblock in 2015, injuring a police officer.
His photo in an Israeli court, raising his withered fingers, his face partly burned, is regularly brandished to illustrate the suffering of Palestinian prisoners. “I am ashamed to speak of rejoicing when all of Palestine is hurt,” she said, alongside her 13-year-old son Moatassem. Israel accuses the thirty-year-old of having wanted to commit a suicide attack, while pro-Palestinian media like Wafa – Palestine News Agency claim that Israeli soldiers opened fire on her vehicle, causing a gas canister she was carrying to explode.
Marah Bakir, the one who tried to stab a police officer
Marah Bakir was released on Friday. The young woman was arrested on her way to school seven years ago for trying to stab a police officer in Jerusalem. Incarcerated in February 2016, she was not due to be released before 2025. “My daughter is weak, she has not eaten since yesterday,” laments Fatina Salman. Marah Bakir does not leave her mother in the family home in the Beit Hanina neighborhood of East Jerusalem. With a jerky delivery, this 24-year-old Palestinian, eight of whom are in prison, continues interviews in front of the cameras. “I am happy but my liberation came at the price of the blood of the martyrs,” she says, referring to the 15,000 deaths in Gaza, two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Hamas government.
Freedom “far from the four walls of the prison” is “magnificent,” she says, a flowery blue veil on her head. “I spent the end of my childhood and my adolescence in prison, far from my parents and their hugs, but that’s how it is with a State that oppresses us and leaves none of us alone.” His phone never stops ringing: relatives, friends who want to say a word as quickly as possible. Then his mother brings him a glass of water and whistles the end of the media sequence. “Sorry, let her cool down a bit.”
The youngest and the oldest
The oldest of those released from the agreement is a 59-year-old woman, Hanan Salah Abdallah Barghouti. She was arrested in September for “Hamas-related activities, including money transfers.” “The situation of women prisoners has continued to worsen since October 7. We are isolated, in our cells, we only go out to take showers. We no longer have access to the canteen, so very little food,” she said. regretted to France Info.
The youngest is Adam Abouda Hassan Gheit. The 14-year-old is from East Jerusalem, occupied and illegally annexed by Israel. He was arrested in May for “sabotage (…), assault against a police officer and throwing stones”.