BEITUNIA, West Bank: Over three dozen Palestinian prisoners returned home to a hero’s welcome in the occupied West Bank on Friday following their release from Israeli prisons as part of a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas.
The procession of freed prisoners, some accused of minor offenses and others convicted in attacks, at a checkpoint outside of Jerusalem stoked massive crowds of Palestinians into a chanting, clapping, hand-waving, screaming frenzy.
Fifteen dazed young men, all in stained grey prison sweatsuits and looking gaunt with exhaustion, glided through the streets on the shoulders of their teary-eyed fathers as fireworks turned the night sky to blazing color and patriotic Palestinian pop music blared.
Some of those released were draped in Palestinian flags, others in the green flags of Hamas. They flashed victory signs as they crowd-surfed.
“I have no words, I have no words,” said newly released 17-year-old Jamal Brahma, searching for something to say to the hordes of jostling journalists and thousands of chanting Palestinians, many in national dress. “Thank God.”
Tears fell down his father Khalil Brahma’s cheeks as he brought his son down from his shoulders and looked him in the eye for the first time in seven months. Israeli forces had arrested Jamal at his home in the Palestinian city of Jericho last spring and detained him without charge or trial.
“I just want to be his father again,” he said.
The release of the Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails came just hours after two dozen hostages, including 13 Israelis, were released from captivity in Gaza in the initial exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners during the four-day cease-fire that started Friday.
Under the deal, Hamas is to release at least 50 hostages, and Israel 150 Palestinian prisoners, over the four days. Israel said the truce can be extended an extra day for every additional 10 hostages freed.
Although the atmosphere was festive in the town of Beitunia near Israel’s hulking Ofer Prison in the West Bank, people were on edge.
The Israeli government has ordered police to shut down celebrations over the release. Israeli security forces at one point unleashed tear gas canisters on the crowds, sending young men, old women and small children sprinting away as they wept and screamed in pain.
“The army is trying to take this moment away from us but they can’t,” Mays Foqaha said as she tumbled into the arms of her newly released 18-year-old friend, Nour Al-Taher from Nablus, who was arrested during a protest in September at the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. ”This is our day of victory.”
The Palestinian detainees freed Friday included 24 women, some of whom had been sentenced to years-long prison terms over attempted stabbings and other attacks on Israeli security forces. Others had been accused of incitement on social media.
There were also the 15 male teenagers, most of them charged with stone-throwing and “supporting terrorism,” a broadly defined accusation that underscores Israel’s long-running crackdown on young Palestinian men as violence surges in the occupied territory.
For families on both sides of the conflict, news of the exchange — perhaps the first hopeful moment in 49 days of war — stirred a bittersweet jumble of joy and anguish.
“As a Palestinian, my heart is broken for my brothers in Gaza, so I can’t really celebrate,” said Abdulqader Khatib, a UN worker whose 17-year-old son, Iyas, was placed last year in “administrative detention,” without charges or trial and based on secret evidence. “But I am a father. And deep inside, I am very happy.”
Israel is now holding an all-time high of 2,200 Palestinians in administrative detention, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, an advocacy group, in a controversial policy that Israel defends as a counter-terrorism measure.
Since Oct. 7, when Hamas took roughly 240 Israeli and foreign citizens hostage and killed 1,200 Israelis in its unprecedented rampage through southern Israel, Palestinians have wondered about the fate of their own prisoners.
Israel has a history of agreeing to lopsided exchanges. In 2011, Hamas got Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to release more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for a single captive Israeli soldier, Gilad Schalit.
A prisoner release touches Palestinian society to its core. Almost every Palestinian has a relative in jail – or has been there himself. Human rights groups estimate that over 750,000 Palestinians have passed through Israeli prisons since Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in 1967.
Whereas Israel views them as terrorists, Palestinians refer to them by the Arabic word for prisoners of war, and devote a good chunk of public funds to supporting them and their families. Israel and the US have condemned the grants to prisoner families as an incentive for violence.
“These kinds of prisoner exchanges are often the only hope families have to see their sons or fathers released before many years go by,” said Amira Khader, international advocacy officer at Addameer, a group supporting Palestinian prisoners. “It’s what they live for, it’s like a miracle from God.”
Since the Hamas attack, Israel has escalated a months-long West Bank crackdown on Palestinians suspected of ties to Hamas and other militant groups. Many prisoners are convicted by military courts, which prosecute Palestinians with a conviction rate of more than 99 percent. Rights groups say Palestinians are often denied due process and forced into confessions.
There are now 7,200 Palestinians in Israeli prison, said Qadura Fares, the director of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, with over 2,000 arrested since Oct. 7 alone.
On Friday in Beitunia, a lanky and pimpled 16-year-old, Aban Hammad, stood unmoving, looking shaken by the tumult of tears, hugs and pro-Hamas chants around him. It was his first glimpse of the world after a year in prison for throwing stones in the northern town of Qalqilya. He was freed even though he had eight months of his sentence left to serve.
He turned toward his father, wrapping him into a hug. “Look, I’m almost bigger than you now,” he said.
Palestinian families rejoice over release of minors and women in wartime prisoner swap
https://arab.news/9bkbb
Palestinian families rejoice over release of minors and women in wartime prisoner swap
- The procession of freed prisoners, some accused of minor offenses, stoked massive crowds of Palestinians into a chanting, screaming frenzy
- Fifteen dazed young men, all in stained grey prison sweatsuits, glided through the streets on shoulders of their teary-eyed fathers amid fireworks
Israel army tells north Gaza residents to leave ‘combat zone’
The latest call follows a series of evacuation orders for large swathes of the Gaza Strip’s north
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military called for the evacuation of several areas in northern Gaza on Thursday, again warning that Palestinian militants were launching rockets from there.
“We inform you that the designated area is considered a dangerous combat zone. For your safety, move south immediately,” military spokesman Avichay Adraee said in a post on X along with a map of the area in Gaza City’s northwest.
The latest call follows a series of evacuation orders for large swathes of the Gaza Strip’s north, where Israeli forces have intensified their operations since early October.
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer told reporters that “we are isolating Gazan civilians away from Hamas terrorists so we can get to the terrorists” still in that area.
“Right now, there are residents of the northern part of Gaza who have been evacuated to safer places,” he added.
Greek tanker crippled by Houthi militants starts oil transfer
ATHENS: A Greek oil tanker crippled by Yemen’s Houthi militants and towed to avert an environmental disaster began transferring its cargo of over a million barrels on Thursday, the state-run ANA news agency said.
The Sounion caught fire and lost power after being attacked on August 21 off the coast of Hodeidah, a Houthi-held port city.
The following day its 25-strong crew was rescued. The rebels claimed to have detonated charges on the ship’s deck, sparking new fires.
ANA said the Sounion had begun transferring its cargo of 150,000 tons of crude to another tanker, Delta Blue, at a “safe anchorage” in the port of Suez.
“The vessel is at Suez, and as it’s at a safe anchorage, we are no longer monitoring it,” a source at Greece’s merchant marine ministry told AFP.
Citing ministry sources, ANA said the operation began on Thursday and will last between three and four weeks.
In September, EU maritime safety body Aspides said the Sounion was not under its protection at the time of the attack.
The ship’s original course “was a bit of a mystery,” the ministry source told AFP. “We were told it was heading from Iraq to Singapore. If that were the case, how did it end up in the Red Sea?“
The operation to tow the vessel to safety in September required a tugboat escorted by three frigates, helicopters and a special forces team, ANA said.
Had the vessel broken up or exploded, it could have caused an oil spill four times larger than that caused by the Exxon Valdez in 1989 off Alaska, experts had warned.
The EU naval force was formed in February to protect merchant vessels in the Red Sea from attacks by Houthis.
The Houthis have waged a campaign against international shipping to show solidarity with Hamas in its war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.
They have been firing drones and missiles at ships in the vital commercial route, saying they are targeting vessels linked to Israel, the US and Britain.
The United States, with the support of allies led by Britain, has carried out repeated air strikes on rebel bases in Yemen.
Lebanon says 3 killed, UN peacekeepers wounded in Israel strikes
- Three Lebanese soldiers manning the checkpoint were also wounded alongside members of the Malaysian contingent of UNIFIL, according to the army
SIDON: The Lebanese army said an Israeli strike on a vehicle near a checkpoint in the southern city of Sidon on Thursday killed three people and wounded troops and UN peacekeepers.
“The Israeli enemy targeted a car while it was passing through the Awali checkpoint,” the main northern entrance to Sidon, the army said.
With the exception of a few limited strikes, Sidon, a Sunni Muslim-majority city, has been relatively spared the deadly air raids targeting south Lebanon in Israel’s war against the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.
The strike killed three people, all of them passengers in the targeted vehicle, the army said.
Three Lebanese soldiers manning the checkpoint were also wounded alongside members of the Malaysian contingent of UNIFIL, according to the army.
The UNIFIL peacekeeping force said a “convoy bringing newly-arrived peacekeepers to south Lebanon was passing Sidon when a drone strike occurred nearby.”
“Five peacekeepers were lightly injured and treated by the Lebanese Red Cross on the spot. They will continue to their posts,” it said, urging warring parties “to avoid actions putting peacekeepers or civilians in danger.”
UNIFIL has thousands of peacekeepers
Lebanon’s official National News Agency said a UNIFIL vehicle was on the “same lane” during the strike, which left UN peacekeepers with “minor injuries.”
An AFP correspondent in the area saw the charred, mangled remains of the targeted vehicle which was only a few meters away from an army checkpoint.
The correspondent saw UNIFIL peacekeepers gathered on the sidewalk near the checkpoint, some of them bloodied and wounded after the raid, as paramedics attended to their injuries.
The UNIFIL convoy comprised a number of busses, the correspondent said.
Israeli raids have intensified in recent weeks on Haret Saida, a densely-populated Sidon suburb that has a significant population of Shiite Muslims.
Israel has also increasingly launched targeted strikes on vehicles. A woman was killed Thursday in an Israeli strike targeting a car on a key road linking the capital Beirut with the Bekaa Valley and Syria, a security source told AFP.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported earlier that “an enemy drone targeted a car in Araya,” adding that the strike left the route blocked to vehicular traffic.
The highway links Beirut to the Syrian capital of Damascus, through the Lebanese mountains.
Hezbollah calls for US action, not words, as Trump reclaims White House
- “It might be a change in the party who is in power, but when it comes to Israel, they have more or less the same policy,” Moussawi told Reuters
- “We want to see actions, we want to see decisions taken”
BEIRUT: Hezbollah welcomes any effort to stop the war in Lebanon but does not pin its hopes for a ceasefire on a particular US administration, Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim Al-Moussawi said on Thursday when asked about Donald Trump’s election victory.
“It might be a change in the party who is in power, but when it comes to Israel, they have more or less the same policy,” Moussawi told Reuters.
“We want to see actions, we want to see decisions taken,” he said. Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have exchanged fire for more than a year, in parallel with the Gaza war, but fighting has escalated since late September, with Israeli troops intensifying bombing of Lebanon’s south and east and making ground incursions into border villages.
Israel says it is targeting Hezbollah infrastructure and military assets, while avoiding civilians. Hezbollah and Lebanese officials point to the rising death toll, with more than 3,000 killed, and widespread destruction in the country as evidence that Israel is targeting civilians. US diplomatic efforts to halt fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which included a 60-day ceasefire proposal, faltered last week ahead of the US election on Tuesday in which former President Donald Trump recaptured the White House.
Moussawi acknowledged the heavy toll of Israeli attacks that have blown apart thousands of buildings, mostly in Lebanon’s Shiite Muslim-dominated south and east and Beirut’s southern suburbs, but said the group’s military capabilities remained strong.
“Our hearts are broken — we are losing very dear lives. This feeling that cannot be punished or brought to international justice is a result of USsupport which renders them immune to accountability,” he said.
“America is a full partner in what’s happening because they can exercise influence to stop this destruction.”
Massad Boulos, a Lebanese-American billionaire who is the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter, Tiffany, said he would be in charge of negotiating with the Lebanese side to reach an agreement to end the war, Lebanese broadcaster Al Jadeed quoted him as saying this week.
He also said that Trump was aiming to end the war before he took office in January, Al Jadeed reported. Reuters could not immediately reach Boulos.
The Israeli government celebrated Trump’s return to power, saying he was a leader who would support them “unconditionally.”
STRIKE AT ARMY CHECKPOINT
Overnight on Wednesday, Israel carried out a series of strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs, including at least one strike just tens of meters from Beirut airport’s runways.
Lebanese Transport Minister Ali Hamiye said the airport was functioning normally on Thursday.
France sees ‘window’ to end Gaza, Lebanon wars after Trump win
JERUSALEM: French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Thursday in Jerusalem he saw prospects for ending Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon after Donald Trump was elected US president.
“I believe a window has opened for putting an end to the tragedy in which Israelis, Palestinians and the entire region have been immersed since October 7” last year, Barrot told reporters in Jerusalem.
Speaking alongside outgoing Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, Barrot cited Trump’s “wish to see the end of the Middle East’s endless wars” as well as Israel’s recent “tactical successes.”
Barrot said he hoped a “diplomatic solution” would emerge “in the coming weeks.”
“Force alone will not be enough to guarantee Israel’s security,” he said, adding that “military success could not be a substitute for a political perspective.”
“It is time to move toward a deal that would allow for the liberation of all hostages, a ceasefire and the mass entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and to prepare for the day after.”
Barrot said “Israel has the right to defend itself” but pointed to “colonization,” “humanitarian aid restrictions” and “the continuation of air strikes in north Gaza” as risk factors for Israel’s security.
Barrot is expected to speak with Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas and his prime minister, Muhammad Mustafa
