The names of the four female Israeli soldiers who will be exchanged on Saturday for Palestinian prisoners have been released by Hamas.
This is the second of these exchanges to run the course of the first two phases of a three-phase suspension approved this month.
Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag were all jailed on October 7, 2023, during Hamas-led attacks on military posts and towns in southern Israel. They will now be exchanged for 200 of the approximately 1,800 Palestinian prisoners awaiting release from Israeli prisons in the first six-week phase of the Hamas-Israel ceasefire, which has come into force Sunday.
Under the terms of the deal, Israel agreed to release 50 Palestinian prisoners for every Israeli soldier held in Gaza and 30 for any of the other women captured in the first phase of the ceasefire. . The remaining prisoners will be released during the second phase of the agreement, and negotiations are expected to begin on February 4.
The third phase aims to focus on the reconstruction and long-term governance of Gaza.
What do we know about the female Israeli soldiers who are about to be released?
Ariev, 20, was serving at the Nahal Oz military base, about 1km (0.6 miles) from the border with Gaza at the time of her abduction. In July – hoping to put pressure on the Israeli government, which many of the detainees' families felt was stalling upon their release – her parents released an image given to them by Hamas. was said to have seen Ariev in the first few days of captivity.
In the undated image, Ariev can be seen sitting with her head on a band together with Albag, Agam Berger and Gilboa, who also had a band on her head.
She was later identified by her parents from a video released on Telegram that day by Hamas. Her abduction was confirmed by the Israeli military about 48 hours later
Gilboa, 20, was also at the Nahal Oz center. Gilboa appeared in a video released by Hamas in July, calling on the Israeli government to bring her and the other prisoners home.
Levy, 19 when she was captured and now 20, had just started her military service when Hamas attacked, the BBC quoted her mother as saying. Hours after her abduction, she appeared in a Hamas video that showed her bundled into a Jeep.
Albag, 19, was serving as a military scout at the Nahal Oz base. Her family believed she was hiding from a rocket barrage in a field shelter during the Hamas-led attack. Albag was later identified in a Telegram video of prisoners released by Hamas that day.
Of the female soldiers picked up, only 21-year-old Berger will remain in captivity if the exchange goes through on Saturday as planned. Three other women were released in the first exchange on Sunday.
What was the response to the first prisoner exchange?
It was mixed.
There are many people in the The West Bank celebrated the release of 90 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons early Monday – 69 women and 21 children. Many people showed their enthusiasm by reuniting with family members and friends. A mob was carrying released prisoners over their heads as they hummed and whistled along.
Amanda Abu Sharkh, 23, had come just to see the Ramallah Red Cross buses carrying the prisoners. “We came here to see and feel the emotions, just like the families of the prisoners who are being released today,” Abu Sharkh told AFP news agency.
“All the prisoners who are released today feel like family to us. They are a part of us, even if they are not blood relatives,” she said.
In contrast, many Israelis felt great relief over Sunday's return Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari mixed with anger and resentment from a minority who saw the exchange as a defeat in Israel's war on Gaza, which has killed at least 47,283 Palestinians.
In the West Bank, The Israeli military launched an attack on Tuesday on the city and refugee camp of Jenin, and abusive Israeli settlers targeted six towns they had identified as the home of Palestinian women and children, attacking houses, shops, cars and buses with firebombs.
Why did Israeli forces order Palestinians not to celebrate the distribution?
They were worried about how that would look.
There have been numerous reports of police visiting the homes of Palestinian prisoners, removing flags, signs and sweets and expelling anyone, including journalists, who are not close family members. . There have also been reports of scuffles between journalists covering the joy of Palestinians at the return of family members.
It was also reported that family members of released prisoners were called to police stations and warned not to organize celebrations or processions to celebrate their release. Family members also told Israel's Haaretz newspaper that they had been told by police not to comment on the social media posts or give media interviews.
Israel's determination to avoid the exchange as a loss also extended to the prisoners themselves. Rula Hassanein, who was released on Monday, described how the women were forced to kneel on the ground for hours before being freed and watched a 90-second looping video that told them: “Victory is not this is for you. We have destroyed and killed in Gaza, in Yemen, in Syria, in Iran. We killed (your) leadership,” she recalled.
“We weren't allowed to look left or right, just at the screen,” she told CNN.
Why were the Palestinian prisoners arrested?
According to an Israeli NGO HaMokedto be arrested by the Israeli authorities for any violation, no matter how small, that is customary for Palestinians.
according to 2017 report by prisoners' rights association Adameer, 40 percent of all male Palestinians have been arrested by Israeli forces at various times.
HaMoked said this month that 10,221 Palestinians were imprisoned by Israel, of which 3,376 were being held under administrative control. Administrative detention allows the Israeli authorities to hold prisoners for indefinite periods of time without charge or, in some cases, without even explaining why they are holding them.
Dania Hanatsheh was among those released Monday who were held in administrative detention. “Palestinian families are prepared to be arrested at any time,” Hanatsheh, who said she was never told why she was detained, told US-based ABC News. feeling helpless, like you can't do anything to protect yourself.”
What kind of conditions are Palestinian prisoners held in?
The bad ones.
Shatha Jarabaa, 24, who was arrested in August for a social media post deemed “spiritual” by Israeli authorities, told the UK's Guardian newspaper that she had lost 14kg (31lb) over five months in prison.
“The treatment in the prison was so bad,” she told the newspaper. “Each prisoner had only one coat. It was very cold inside the detention center. The rain would fall on us at inside the cells. My arrest was unreasonable and unwarranted. The charge was incitement and support for terrorist groups due to posting Quranic verses on social media.
“It was a way to imprison as many women as possible because of the prisoners inside Gaza and exchange them for Israeli hostages. We were also enemies because we were imprisoned against our will without credible charges.”
Israel's prison system and the conditions in which Palestinians are held have been the focus of sharp criticism by rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Israel's B'Tselem.
Several rapes were reported during the war. In August, many of Israel's top politicians took to the streets to defend soldiers who had been prison guards against accusations that they had assaulted a Palestinian detainee. A few months later, in November, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese reported on a prominent Palestinian surgeon Adnan Al-Bursh so likely to be “forced to death”.
It is impossible to force death.
Doctor. A stellar surgeon. The making of Palestinian ethics.
It is impossible to force death.The racism of the Western media that does not cover this, and Western politicians that do not deny this, along with the thousand other testimonies and… pic.twitter.com/IRpCSi9nVZ
– Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPT (@FranceskAlbs) November 18, 2024
At the time of his death, Dr. Al-Bursh was being held at Ofer Prison near Ramallah, the same facility where many of the women and children released this week were held.
In his August report on Israel's prison system titled Welcome to Hell, B'Tselem documented the treatment of Palestinians in more than a dozen prison facilities that have been converted since the start of the war in October 2023 to what the NGO as a “network. of camps dedicated to the abuse of prisoners as a matter of policy”.
