Who are the Palestinians liberated by Israel and what will become of them?

Under the agreement between Hamas and Israel, the first 90 Palestinian prisoners were released from Israeli prisons. However, not everyone has the same profile.

They are the first to benefit from the agreement on prisoner exchanges. On the night of Sunday January 19 to Monday January 20, 90 Palestinian prisoners were released from the Ofer military prison, in the occupied West Bank, and from a detention center in Jerusalem, in exchange for three Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

The first wave of released Palestinians mainly included women, 69 to be exact, as well as 21 teenagers. The vast majority of them had been arrested after the massacre of October 7, 2023 and were serving short sentences, with the exception of Nawal Fatiha. This 23-year-old young woman was sentenced to eight years in prison for stabbing an Israeli in Jerusalem, according to the daily Haaretz. The others were awaiting trial or in administrative detention. Inherited from the British mandate, this procedure allows the Israeli authorities to incarcerate any person deemed dangerous, without charge and without time limit.

This was the case of Abla Abdel Rassoul, the oldest aged 68, as well as that of Khalida Jarrar, the best known of the released prisoners. This prominent Palestinian rights activist has spent much of the past decade behind bars. A member of the leadership of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, classified as terrorist by the United States and the European Union, she continued to travel back and forth between Ramallah and Israeli prisons. In 2021, Israel denied him humanitarian permission to attend his daughter's funeral.

Of the 90 Palestinians released on Sunday, 76 were transferred to the West Bank and 14 to East Jerusalem. Further releases are expected in the coming days as, according to the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, a total of 1,900 Palestinians are to be released. Among them, some are serving life sentences for carrying out attacks or committing murder against Israeli soldiers or civilians. The Israeli press at one point raised the possibility of sending them into exile in Qatar or Turkey, which has yet to be confirmed.