the worrying profile of certain Palestinian terrorists whom Israel is preparing to release

Israel will recover some of its hostages at the cost of significant concessions. The first phase of a ceasefire agreement with Hamas, ratified on Friday by the Hebrew government, will allow the release of 33 hostages captured by the terrorist faction on October 7. In return, Israel will release more than a thousand Gazans arrested during the 15-month military operation carried out in the enclave, and above all 737 prisoners locked up in its jails, sometimes for many years. Among them, dangerous terrorists responsible for dozens of deaths in attacks, and sentenced to life imprisonment.

The most famous is called Zakaria Zubeidi. He was the leader in Jenin of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, an armed faction of Fatah considered terrorist by the European Union. This man in his fifties is responsible for several attacks, including that against a Likud office in Beit She’an in 2002, where six people were killed. He also instigated a 2004 bomb attack in Tel Aviv that killed a woman and injured more than 30 people. A figure in the second intifada, he was arrested in 2019 but escaped in 2021 after digging a tunnel with a spoon for six months, before being caught five days later.

Bombings, rapes, “mass murderer”

One of his escape companions, Jaradata member of Islamic Jihad, is also on the list of released prisoners. He is in prison for ordering a terrorist attack in 2003, during which a senior Israeli security official was killed. The murderer, senior Islamic Jihad official Ahmed Dahiri, is also on the list. Another risk profile, that of Mohammad Abu Warda. Sentenced to 48 life sentences for his role in two terrorist attacks on buses in Jerusalem in 1996, which left 45 dead, he was described as a “mass murderer” by the military prosecutor during his trial. “The struggle of our people against you will never end. We will remain firm and determined until you leave our land.”he declared in court.

Also read
Ceasefire in Gaza: why Israel is not approaching the truce as the indisputable winner

Another senior Islamic Jihad figure in Jenin, According to Mardawicould also leave Israeli jails. Arrested in 2002, he was found guilty of the murder of 20 Israelis and the wounding of 150 others. To his credit, several bombings and a shooting in a market. Mohammed Naifehconsidered one of Israel’s longest-serving Palestinian prisoners, will also be released, having been sentenced to 13 life sentences for the attack on a kibbutz which left five dead in 2002. Wael Cassemhead of a Hamas cell in East Jerusalem, will also be released despite 35 life sentences for several attacks in cafes and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2002.

Another member of Hamas’s military wing, Nassim Zaatarishould also be released. He was sentenced to 23 life sentences for the murder of 23 people in a bus attack in Jerusalem. The Israeli authorities will also release Mahmoud Attallahconvicted of the murder of a Palestinian woman in Nablus in 2003, and accused of raping one of his guards in prison. In addition to these names, the most dangerous, many others responsible for less massive attacks are on the list of those released.