In the darkness of the night, phone screens glow: no one in the occupied West Bank wants to miss the triumphant arrival of Palestinian women and children released from Israeli prisons on Friday.
• Also read: Ceasefire between Israel and Hamas: 24 hostages released
• Also read: Israel-Hamas deal: 39 Palestinian women and children released from Israeli prisons
• Also read: Almost 140 humanitarian aid trucks are entering the Gaza Strip
In total, 39 Palestinian prisoners returned to their homes as part of a ceasefire that also allowed for the release of 13 Israeli hostages kidnapped by the Islamist movement Hamas on October 7.
Amid slogans, amid fireworks, in a cloud of keffiyehs, Palestinian flags and various movements, including the green banner of Hamas, the released prisoners hug their families and cry in the arms of their moved parents.
AFP
In Beitunia, hundreds of Palestinians celebrate the “heroes” who are imprisoned “for the freedom of all Palestinians,” a speaker says into a crackling microphone.
The evening began with shouts: Israeli soldiers fired tear gas canisters and the Palestinian Red Crescent recorded at least three gunshot wounds.
Further north, in Balata, the busy refugee camp in Nablus, the big city in the north of the West Bank, the “heroes” excursion also delights the crowd.
AFP
“The brothers who resist”
But no one, says one speaker, forgets “our brothers who resist and hold out in Gaza, in Jenin.” This city in the occupied West Bank experienced its deadliest day (14 deaths) since at least 2005 on November 9, according to the UN, which has recorded deaths in the area since that date.
Because while the war has been raging in the Gaza Strip for seven weeks, violence has also flared up in the West Bank. According to the Palestinian Authority, a 22-year-old Palestinian was shot dead by the Israeli army in Jericho on Friday morning.
According to the Gaza government, around 15,000 people have died in Gaza since October 7th and the bloody Hamas attack, which claimed 1,200 lives in Israel, most of them civilians according to the Israeli authorities, and around 240 hostages. Hamas.
At the same time, more than 200 Palestinians were killed by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
According to Palestinian NGOs, around 3,000 Palestinians have been arrested in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since the war began. They also announced the deaths of six prisoners held since October 7th.
And in the occupied territories, the prison experience is one of the most widely shared: According to the NGO Addameer, around 800,000 Palestinians have served time in Israeli prisons since the Israeli-Arab war in June 1967 and the start of the occupation of the territories. Palestinians.
The Prisoner Defense Organization currently lists 200 Palestinian children and 84 women in Israeli prisons, out of more than 7,000 prisoners.
East Jerusalem is under surveillance
A few kilometers from the West Bank, East Jerusalem, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967, is experiencing an even different evening. Under the gaze of Israeli police officers, the joy is quietly expressed.
“The police are at our house and are stopping people from visiting us,” Fatina Salman told AFP. Because any celebration surrounding the released prisoners is forbidden in Jerusalem.
His daughter Malak, 23, was arrested on her way to school seven years ago for trying to stab a police officer in Jerusalem. She was detained in February 2016 and was not scheduled to be released until 2025. But tonight she will sleep at home in her Beit Safafa neighborhood.
“My daughter is weak, she hasn’t eaten anything since yesterday,” complains Fatina Salman.
Marah Bakir refuses to leave her mother in the family home in the Beit Hanina district of East Jerusalem. This 24-year-old Palestinian, eight of whom are in prison, continues his interviews in front of the cameras with a jerky performance.
AFP
“I am happy, but my liberation came with the blood of the martyrs,” she says, pointing to the 15,000 dead in Gaza, two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Hamas government.
Freedom “away from the four walls of prison” is “great,” she says, a flowery blue veil on her head. “I spent the end of my childhood and adolescence in prison, far from my parents and their embrace, but that’s how it is with a state that oppresses us and leaves none of us alone.”
His phone never stops ringing: relatives, friends wanting to say a word as quickly as possible. Then his mother brings him a glass of water and whistles the end of the media sequence. “Sorry, let her cool down a bit.”