Israel’s prison authority announced on Saturday night that it had released 39 Palestinian prisoners after Gaza’s ruling Islamist Hamas movement released 20 hostages under an agreement that took effect on Friday.
• Also read: Hamas’ military wing said it had handed over 13 Israeli hostages and 4 foreigners to the ICRC
• Also read: Six Palestinians were killed by the Israeli army in the occupied West Bank
The deal is expected to last four days and allow for the release of 50 Hamas hostages and 150 Palestinian prisoners.
In East Jerusalem, which is occupied and annexed by Israel, the released prisoners, all women and young people under the age of 19, are quietly celebrated amid an Israeli police operation.
In the house of 39-year-old Israa Jaabis, the most famous prisoner on the list, there were particularly many booted, helmeted and armed members of the Israeli security forces.
His photo, showing his withered fingers and partially burned face in front of an Israeli court, is regularly waved at demonstrations or to illustrate the suffering of Palestinian prisoners.
“I am ashamed to speak of joy when all of Palestine is hurting,” she told reporters alongside her 13-year-old son Moatassem in her family’s living room in their Jabal Moukkaber neighborhood.
“You have to release everyone,” she pleaded.
Ms Jaabis was sentenced to 11 years in prison for detonating a gas cylinder she was carrying in the boot of her car at a roadblock in 2015, injuring a police officer.
The NGO Addameer, which provided her with a lawyer, reports that she suffered burns on 50% of her body. According to the Palestinian authorities, she now needs six operations.
In the rest of the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967, joy and, above all, slogans are breaking out in praise of Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organization by the USA, the European Union and Israel.
It is this Islamist movement, the great rival of the Fatah of Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, whose power only extends to parts of the West Bank, that negotiated the agreement with Israel to exchange hostages for prisoners.
“Ezzedine! “Ezzedine!” the crowd chanted, referring to Hamas’ armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades. On Friday evening, hundreds of Palestinians chanted in unison: “We are your men, Deif” or “We want Sinouar,” in reference to Mohammed Deif, the elusive commander of Hamas’s armed wing, and Yahya Sinouar, the movement’s leader in Gaza .
When the first group of 39 prisoners were released, the Prisoners’ Club, a Palestinian NGO that defends prisoners, reported that 17 Palestinians had been arrested that same day.