Under the terms of the agreement, Israel will release more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners during an initial 42-day ceasefire and will release at least 90 people starting Sunday in exchange for three Israeli hostages being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Israelis say many of the prisoners are terrorists or murderers. Many Palestinians see the jailed militants as freedom fighters opposing Israeli rule, while others claim they were imprisoned by an unfair Israeli military justice system.
According to the Israeli Ministry of Justice, the most prominent Palestinian prisoners scheduled to be released under the ceasefire are:
Zakaria Zubeidi
For the past two decades, 49-year-old Zakaria Zubeidi has been a militant, theater director and prison escapee whose escape shocked Israelis and Palestinians alike.
Mr. Zubeidi rose to prominence as a militant leader during the Second Intifada (uprising) in the early 2000s. During this period, Palestinian militants carried out deadly attacks against Israelis, including suicide bombings targeting civilian roads.
Israel responded by reoccupying major Palestinian cities amidst street fighting. Some of the fiercest fighting took place in the Palestinian city of Jenin, Mr. Zubeidi’s hometown. He later emerged as the top commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed militia loosely linked to the secular Fatah party, the ruling Palestinian faction in the West Bank.
After the uprising, Mr. Zubeidi worked in one place. Theater inside the esoteric Jenin refugee camp. In 2019, Israel arrested him again on charges that he had returned to fighting.
Two years later, Mr. Zubeidi and five other Palestinian prisoners carried out a prison escape by crawling nearly 32 yards through an underground tunnel in one of Israel’s highest-security prisons. Although it was later recaptured, the security breach shocked Israelis and agitated Palestinians.
Mr. Zubeidi’s son, Mohammad, was killed in an Israeli drone strike last September. The Israeli military called the son a “significant terrorist” and said he was involved in shootings targeting Israeli troops.
Wissam Abbasi, Mohammad Odeh, Wael Qassim
Wissam Abbasi, 48, Mohammad Odeh, 52, and Wael Kassim, 54, were jailed in 2002 for Hamas attacks on Israel during the Second Intifada. The three men were sentenced to life in prison for murder and several other crimes, according to Israel’s Ministry of Justice.
According to Israeli media reports at the time, the men were among several found guilty. Has been implicated in a Hamas cell in Jerusalem It was responsible for a series of bombings that killed more than 30 Israelis in a crowded civilian area.
This attack included a Hamas bombing at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that resulted in deaths. nine peopleAccording to Israeli authorities, four U.S. citizens were included.
Mr. Odeh, who worked as a painter at the university, planted a bomb in the cafeteria and covered it with newspaper, the New York Times reported at the time, citing an Israeli official. As he left, he remotely detonated the explosives using his cellphone, officials said.
Under the terms of the ceasefire agreement, the men will not be allowed to return to their homes in Jerusalem, according to the Israeli Ministry of Justice. They must live in exile, but it is not clear where they can go.
Khalida Jarar
One of the most high-profile Palestinian prisoners expected to be released as early as Sunday is Khalida Jarrar, 62, the leader of the left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Ms. Zarar, a prominent activist for the rights of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, was elected to the Palestinian Parliament in the 2006 elections.
The United States and the European Union consider the Popular Front a terrorist organization. The group became infamous for a series of plane hijackings and other attacks in the late 1960s, including during the Second Intifada.
Her husband, Ghassan Jarrar, said in a phone interview that Israeli authorities have not allowed him to visit his wife since her arrest in December 2023. He made sure his wife’s lawyer could make rare visits to get updates on his wife’s condition. said.
Mr. Jarrar has been in and out of Israeli prisons for the past decade, but has never been convicted of direct involvement in the Popular Front’s military activities. In 2015, he was sentenced to 15 months in prison on charges of sedition and belonging to a banned group.
In recent years, Israel has detained Mr. Zarar mostly without formal charges. Human rights groups call this practice a serious violation of due process, while Israel says the measures are sometimes necessary to protect sensitive information.
In 2021, while Ms. Zarar was imprisoned in an Israeli prison, her daughter Suha died. Israel rejected her request to grant her humanitarian leave to attend the funeral.
