Dozens of young people repeatedly chant “Hamas, Hamas, Hamas!” The green of the fundamentalist militia’s flags dominates the celebrations taking place in the West Bank for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons. They are the first group of 33 people to be released in exchange for Israeli hostages, which was agreed alongside the war’s four-day ceasefire. Some of the beneficiaries thank and support the fundamentalist movement while being celebrated by the people in the town of Betunia, home to the Israeli prison Ofer, where they were gathered before their release from prison.
“Israel is the land of injustice. “Hamas is the biggest and the noblest,” Hanan Barguti, 59, is convinced, emphasizing with her stiff index finger as soon as she regains her freedom after three months behind bars. He wears Hamas emblems on his forehead and shoulders, so there is no doubt who he supports. He can barely walk in the middle of the crowd. Many surround her and try to greet this woman who still has four children in prison.
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It is clear that the fundamentalist group, whose armed wing carried out the October 7 attack in Israel that killed 1,200 people and sparked the current conflict, has numerous and proud supporters in the West Bank. This is traditional Palestinian Authority (PNA) territory, but many of those freed strutted their chests out for Hamas at Friday night’s popular celebration.
“We continued despite the pain, despite the blood, despite the massacre of children and women in Gaza and despite the houses destroyed and demolished. “Hamas gave us more pride and dignity than the presidents of the whole world… The presidents of the world could not offer us freedom, but Hamas gave us freedom,” Hanan Barguti said at an impromptu rally surrounded by her family and friends. Dozens of young people listening to her as if she were a popular leader.
Barghouti was arrested by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank city of Kobar on September 6. Since then she has been in the Israeli women’s prison Damon. She should have remained in administrative detention there until January 3, 2024, according to the Israeli authorities’ order, in which she is accused of belonging to Hamas and to which EL PAÍS had access.
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Minutes earlier, with the nerves of hundreds of people fraying ahead of the express group’s imminent arrival, two workers unloaded two large loudspeakers from a car outside the Betunia City Council headquarters. They need to open a corridor so they can move forward. It is clear that despite Israel’s demand not to hold celebrations, no one is stopping the party. Some parents dress their children in the traditional Palestinian kefiya (scarf) with a white background and black checks. Several fireworks lights up the sky.
Hanan Barguti, 59, is received in Betunia (West Bank) on Friday afternoon after Luis De Vega Hernández was released from prison
At the moment when everyone in attendance is warming up for the grand reception, the gusts of wind remind us that Israeli Army troops are nearby, blowing out smoke canisters. Bloating fills everything and cough spreads, accompanied by an itchy throat and difficulty breathing. Some fear there could be a military invasion to stop the celebrations, but ultimately that doesn’t happen.
From the early afternoon there was unrest with the Israeli military stationed in front of Ofer prison, where the 33 minors and women were handed over to the Red Cross. Another six regained their freedom in Jerusalem, bringing the group’s total to 39. The pact calls for new releases by Monday in return for the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
Laith Othman, 17, is the first of the prisoners to advance down Betunia’s main street, which leads to the town hall. Without triumphantly moving away from the person carrying him, and while greeting those present bullfighter-style as he walks through the front door, he comments that Israel threatened to take them back to prison if there was a celebration . Neither he nor anyone present pays any attention. The group of minors, who come from different areas of the occupied West Bank and are dressed in the gray tracksuits in which they left prison, line up on the steps of the city hall on each other’s shoulders to receive the mass bathing.
“The prison is a living cemetery. All prisoners will be released soon. Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, they have beaten us in prison every day, they have humiliated us every day …,” denounces Yamal Barahnah, 17 years old and originally from Jericho, who has himself photographed with the Fatah flag, the main party the ANP, whose yellow color is lost in the dominance of the green of the Islamists. Barahnah was held in administrative detention for a year and a half without charge or trial for activism against the Israeli army.
Veterans of Israeli prisons
Shortly before speaking to this special envoy, the young man tearfully hugged his father Khalil, 51 years old. He and several of his brothers, Yamal’s uncles, are also old veterans of Israeli prisons, particularly for their participation in the First Intifada (1987-1993). Some show on their leg the memory of a bullet they received at the age their nephew is now. Khalil doesn’t answer whether he’s proud that Yamal, the second of his five children, has followed in his footsteps, but his silence, adorned with a smile, reveals what he’s thinking.
Naima Hmidan, 61 years old and with a stick on her lap, sits in the Betunia library next to the town hall, waiting for the group of liberated people to arrive. Also on the list is her daughter Rawan Zeyadeh, 30, who has been serving a nine-year prison sentence since 2015 for stabbing a member of the Israeli security forces, which her mother denies. “Until I hug her, I won’t believe she’s out,” said Hmidan, who hasn’t seen his daughter in four years.
Another of the released women, Sarah Abdallah from Nablus, was serving an eight-year prison sentence. “Hamas freed me with the agreement and I am extremely proud and grateful,” she says, raising her voice on the steps of City Hall. Abdallah asked to send a message to Yahia Sinwar and Mahamed Deif, the masterminds of the October 7 attack: “I am proud of Sinwar and Deif because they are the only ones who were with us,” she added A group of authorities, including some representatives of the ANP, is challenging Hamas for power.
One of those present is the minister responsible for prisoners, Qadura Fares, smiling and optimistic. So much so that he also ends up unemployed one day. “The day they release everyone, I will be unemployed,” he says, without forgetting that there are still around 8,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
Palestinian prisoners celebrate their release this Friday in the streets of Betunia in the West Bank. AHMAD GHARABLI (AFP)
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