Israel on Saturday freed 183 Palestinian security prisoners, including some serving life sentences on terror charges, following the release of three hostages from Hamas captivity as part of the ongoing Gaza ceasefire deal.
Of the prisoners released, 18 were serving life sentences for deadly attacks on Israelis.
The fifth batch included 111 prisoners captured by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip throughout the war, while the remaining 72 prisoners were arrested before the war.
Of the latter group, 42 reside are from the West Bank, 3 from East Jerusalem and 27 from Gaza, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Commission of Detainees’ Affairs.
Those being released to the West Bank departed from Ofer Prison soon after the Israeli hostages were released from Gaza. The ex-prisoners were greeted by exultant crowds waving Palestinian flags as they arrived by bus to a Ramallah community center.
Another group was escorted by Israeli prison guards to Gaza, after leaving Keziot Prison in the Negev.
Among the most notorious terrorists released was Iyad Abu Shkeidem, 49, a Hebron resident at the helm of Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades in the southern West Bank.
He received 18 life sentences for his key role in planning a 2004 suicide bombing in Beersheba which killed 16 Israelis and injured over 100 others.
Hatem al-Jayousi, a 52-year-old Tulkarem resident who founded the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, was also released Saturday. Arrested in 2003, al-Jayousi was serving six life sentences for murdering six Israelis during the Second Intifada.
Shadi Barghouti, 47, was arrested in 2004 and sentenced to 27 years in prison for his involvement in terror attacks against Israelis. He is the son of Fakhri Barghouti, a convicted terrorist who was freed in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange.
Senior Hamas official Jamal Taweel, 61, was also released. Tawil formerly served as the mayor of Al-Bireh and is known for his key role in reviving Hamas in the West Bank.
In a statement made upon his arrest in 2021, the IDF said Taweel “took an active part in organizing disturbances, inciting violence, and re-establishing the Hamas headquarters in Ramallah.”
The Palestinian Red Crescent medical service said six of the 42 released in the West Bank were in poor health and taken to hospitals. Some prisoners complained of ill-treatment, Reuters reported.
The two prisoners freed to Jerusalem, Issam and Mohammad Attoun, both 20 years old, were arrested for throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at a combined public safety facility in the Sur Baher neighborhood, as per a Maariv report from the time.
The two reunited with their parents in the Russian Compound detention center, who were summoned there for a police interrogation ahead of the release.
The third Jerusalemite prisoner, 58-year-old Ahmad al-Jaafari, is slated for deportation. Seven prisoners in total will be deported, likely due to their leadership potential or technical expertise in building weapons and explosives.
Earlier on Saturday, IDF forces carried out raids on the homes of prisoners scheduled for release, warning families not to host celebrations and threatening them with arrest.
Before their release, Ynet reported that the Israel Prisons Service screened a three-minute long video for the detainees, depicting the widespread destruction in present-day Gaza as a result of the war started by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.