Agreement between Israel and Hamas: who are the Palestinian prisoners who can be exchanged for hostages?

Many Israelis must have breathed a sigh of relief Wednesday morning after learning that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government had finally reached an agreement with Hamas to release some hostages held in the Gaza Strip. 50 of them are likely to leave Gaza’s hell in the coming days to reunite with their loved ones. At least 150 Palestinian prisoners detained in Israel for “terrorism” will go the other way, as required by the agreement.

The Justice Department has published a list of 300 Palestinian prisoners likely to be returned to Gaza, allowing citizens who wish to do so to oppose their release by filing a lawsuit. The Almagor Association for the Protection of Victims of Terrorism also announced that it was filing an appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court.

This list contains the names of 267 boys and 33 women and girls. Among the male prisoners, almost half are minors, and the rest are only 18 years old. In the group of women, the youngest is 15 years old, the oldest is 59 years old.

“Attempted Murder”

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Netanyahu’s government refused to register detainees convicted of murder. Thus, the charges against them range from “terrorist activities” and “attempted murder” to “participation in a prohibited assembly” and “throwing stones at police officers.” Some are affiliated with Hamas, Fatah or Islamic Jihad, but many appear to have operated independently.

One of the prisoners is Mison Musa. At the age of 27, she was arrested in 2015 for attempting to attack an Israeli soldier with a knife. She was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Asra Jabas, 38, is serving an 11-year prison sentence for detonating a gasoline canister at a checkpoint earlier that year, slightly injuring an Israeli policeman.

Apart from the families of terrorism victims who oppose the agreement, there appears to be a fairly consensual agreement within Israeli society. “There is a risk that when fighting resumes after the truce, Israel will lose more soldiers because Hamas was able to regroup (…) But while the lives of babies, children and mothers are at stake, there is a risk that the country is prepared to accept,” the conservative Jerusalem Post summarized in an editorial published this Wednesday.