Who Are the Palestinian Prisoners Slated for Release?

Jerusalem, 23 November, 2023 (TPS) -- Israel and Hamas are now exchanging lists of abductees and imprisoned terrorists ahead of partial prisoner exchange and temporary ceasefire brokered by Qatar. Details of the agreement are being finalized in Doha and a formal announcement is expected later today. Until then, fighting continues in the Gaza Strip.

Under the terms of the ceasefire agreement, 150 Palestinian prisoners and 50 Israeli hostages — primarily women and children — will be released in stages over a four-day period. Israel published a list of 300 Palestinian prisoners of whom 150 will be freed. Israeli terror victims have a 24-hour window to file legal petitions to the Supreme Court.

While some of the Palestinians aren’t associated with any specific terror group, many are affiliated with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Under the terms of agreement, the released Palestinians will be allowed to return to their previous residences.

Notable Palestinians

The agreement does not obligate Israel to release anyone convicted of murder, but several of the Palestinians in the list of 300 came close.

Ataf Jaradat, 50, had advance knowledge of her son, Mohammed’s plan to murder Yehuda Dimentman in 2021 and helped him hide the weapons used in the attack.

Shurok Deviat was jailed for the attempting murder of two Jews in a 2015 stabbing attack in Jerusalem. On the day of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacres in southern Israel, Deviat was promised on social media that she would be released.

Muhammad Abu Katish, 17, carried out a stabbing attack on October 2022 which left his 20 year-old Israeli victim paralyzed.

Sixteen year-old Nafod Hamed stabbed Moriah Cohen as she walked with her five children in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Shimon HaTzaddik (Sheikh Jarrah) in 2021. If released, Hamed will return to his home next door to the Cohens.

Would-be suicide bomber Israa Jaabis survived when she blew up a car with gas cylinders near Maale Adumim in 2015. A police officer was injured in the attack. Jaabis made headlines in 2022 when her request for a nose job was rejected by the Israeli Prisons Service as a cosmetic procedure not necessary for Jaabis’s health.

Fatma Amarna, 44, was convicted of stabbing a police officer outside a gate leading to the Temple Mount. Amarna is a member of the Mourabitoun, a group of Palestinian men and women who harass Jews visiting the Temple Mount. She is expected to return to the Mourabitoun after her release.

Meanwhile, Palestinians in eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria are preparing celebrations to welcome the terrorists home.

At least 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on Oct. 7. Another 240 men, women, children and soldiers were taken back to Gaza as hostages. Some people remain unaccounted for as Israeli authorities continue to identify bodies and search for human remains.