Thirty-nine Palestinian prisoners, women and children, were released from prison by Israeli authorities on Friday in exchange for Israeli hostages released by Hamas, the Prisoners’ Club, an NGO that defends Palestinian prisoners, reported to AFP.
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AFP journalists saw buses leaving Israel’s Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank, where prisoners had been taken for release.
Twenty-eight of them were dropped off in the West Bank, while 11 others were taken to occupied East Jerusalem, the NGO said.
AFP
This group includes 15 minors and 24 women, according to the list published by the Palestinian Authority Prisons Commission.
Israeli prison authorities have confirmed the release of 39 Palestinians from “three prisons,” including two in the occupied West Bank and one in Israel.
“This is the first group of detainees released as part of the plan to bring the hostages home,” they said in a press release.
Malak Salman, 23, was arrested on her way to school seven years ago for trying to stab a police officer in Jerusalem. She had been in prison since February 2016 and was sentenced to nine years in prison.
She returned to her Beit Safafa neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem under police escort.
“The police are at our house and are stopping people from visiting us,” his mother Fatna Salman told AFP. Israeli police announced later in the day that they would ban any celebration surrounding the prisoners released in Jerusalem.
“My daughter is weak, she hasn’t eaten anything since yesterday,” she said again.