Who are the Palestinian prisoners released in exchange for Israeli hostages?

Who are the Palestinian prisoners released in exchange for Israeli hostages?
Former Palestinian prisoner Zakaria Zubeidi, 49, flashes victory signs as he is lifted by the crowd upon arrival with others to Ramallah after their release by Israel, Jan. 30 (AFP)
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Updated 31 January 2025
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Who are the Palestinian prisoners released in exchange for Israeli hostages?

Who are the Palestinian prisoners released in exchange for Israeli hostages?
  • U.N. data shows that one in five Palestinians in the West Bank has passed through Israeli jail
  • 23 prisoners serving life sentences were transferred to Egypt before further deportation

RAMALLAH: Israel released 110 Palestinian prisoners on Thursday in exchange for three Israeli hostages held in Gaza. Five Thai workers held captive in the enclave were also freed in a separate deal with Thailand. Thursday's prisoner-for-hostage swap marked the third round of exchanges as a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas entered its second week.
Most of the prisoners stepped off the Red Cross bus and onto the shoulders of jubilant supporters in the occupied West Bank, where U.N. data shows that one in five Palestinians has passed through Israeli jail and the release of prisoners is a source of joyous national celebration — a homecoming in which almost all Palestinians felt they could partake.
But 23 of them serving life sentences were transferred to Egypt before further deportation.
The prisoners released Thursday were all men, ranging in age from 15 to 69.
Here's a look at some prominent Palestinian prisoners released since the ceasefire deal went into effect on Jan. 19.
Zakaria Zubeidi
Zakaria Zubeidi is a prominent former militant leader and theater director whose dramatic jailbreak in 2021 thrilled Palestinians across the Middle East and stunned the Israeli security establishment.
Zubeidi once led the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade — an armed group affiliated with Fatah, the secular political party that controls the Palestinian Authority — that carried out deadly attacks against Israelis during the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, between 2000 and 2005.
After the intifada in 2006, Zubeidi co-founded a theater in his hometown of Jenin refugee camp, a hotbed of Palestinian militancy, to promote what he described as cultural resistance to Israel. Even today, the Freedom Theater in Jenin refugee camp puts on everything from Shakespeare to stand-up comedy to plays written by residents.
In 2019, after Zubeidi had already served years in prison for attacks in the early 2000s, Israel arrested him again over his alleged involvement in shooting attacks that targeted buses of Israeli settlers but caused no injuries.
Zubeidi, who was released Thursday, had been awaiting trial in prison. He denies the charges, saying that he gave up militancy to focus on his political activism after the intifada.
In 2021, he and five other prisoners tunneled out of a maximum-security prison in northern Israel, an escape that helped solidify Zubeidi’s image among Palestinians as a folk hero. All six were recaptured days later.
In a room packed with family members and supporters smiling, laughing, and jostling for a view of him, Zubeidi shouted to be heard over the frenzy and expressed thanks for God and his loved ones. He searched for words as reporters thrust microphones toward him, offering Islamic prayers to those wounded and killed in Gaza.
Rather than set off to Jenin camp after being freed, he stayed in Ramallah on Thursday night. Israel launched an extensive military raid earlier this month in the Jenin camp that so far has killed at least 18 Palestinians and sent scores of families fleeing.
“May God grant victory to our brothers in the Jenin camp,” Zubeidi said. His son, Mohammed, was killed in an Israeli drone strike last September in the camp.
Palestinian medics, who have raised concerns about the conditions of detainees emerging from Israeli detention, said Zubeidi looked weak and malnourished. Dr. Mai Al-Kaileh, who examined him, said his ribs had been shattered and he had lost a startling amount of weight.
“His condition is very difficult,” she said. “It's not good.”




A crowd welcomes Palestinians formerly jailed by Israel as they arrive in a Red Cross convoy to Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Jan. 30 (AFP)

Mohammed Abu Warda
A Hamas militant during the second intifada, Abu Warda helped organize a series of suicide bombings that killed over 40 people and wounded more than a hundred others. Israel arrested him in 2002, and sentenced him to 48 terms of lifetime imprisonment, among the longest sentences it ever issued.
As a young student, Abu Warda joined Hamas at the start of the intifada following Israel's killing of Yahya Ayyash, the militant group's leading bomb maker, in 1996.
Palestinian authorities said at the time that Warda had helped to recruit suicide bombers — including his cousin, his cousin’s neighbor and a classmate at the Ramallah Teachers College — whose attacks targeting crowded civilian areas in Israeli cities killed scores of people in the early 2000s.
Warda was released on Thursday.

Mohammed Aradeh, 42
An activist in Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Aradeh, was sentenced to life in prison for a range of offenses going back to the second intifada. Some of the charges, according to the Israeli Prison Service, included planting an explosive device and attempting murder.
He was credited with plotting the extraordinary prison escape in 2021, when he and five other detainees, including Zubeidi, used spoons to tunnel out one of Israel’s most secure prisons. They remained at large for days before being caught.
From an impoverished and politically active family in Jenin, in the northern occupied West Bank, Aradeh has three brothers and a sister who have all spent years in Israeli prisons.
He was welcomed as a sort of cult hero in Ramallah on Saturday as family, friends and fans swarmed him, some chanting “The freedom tunnel!” in reference to his jailbreak. When asked how he felt, Aradeh was breathless.
Over and over he muttered, “Thank God, thank God.”
Mohammed Odeh, 52, Wael Qassim, 54, and Wissam Abbasi, 48
All three men hail from the neighborhood of Silwan, in east Jerusalem, and rose within the ranks of Hamas. Held responsible for a string of deadly attacks during the second intifada, the men were sentenced to multiple life sentences in 2002.
They were accused of plotting a suicide bombing at a crowded pool hall near Tel Aviv in 2002 that killed 15 people. Later that year, they were found to have orchestrated a bombing at Hebrew University that killed nine people, including five American students. Israel had described Odeh, who was working as a painter at the university at the time, as the kingpin in the attack.
All three were transferred to Egypt last Saturday. Their families live in Jerusalem and said they will join them in exile.
The Abu Hamid brothers
Three brothers from the prominent Abu Hamid family of the Al-Amari refugee camp in Ramallah — Nasser, 51, Mohammad, 44, and Sharif, 48 — were also deported to Egypt last Saturday. They had been sentenced to life in prison over deadly militant attacks against Israelis in 2002.
Their brother, a different Nasser Abu Hamid, was one of the founders of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade. He was also sentenced to life in prison for several deadly attacks. His 2022 death from lung cancer behind bars unleashed a wave of angry protests across the West Bank as Palestinian officials accused Israel of medical neglect.
The family has a long arc of Palestinian militancy. The mother, Latifa Abu Hamid, 72, now has three sons exiled, one still imprisoned, one who died in prison and one who was killed by Israeli forces. Their family house has been demolished at least three times by Israel, which defends such punitive home demolitions as a deterrent against future attacks.
Mohammad al-Tous, 67
Al-Tous had held the title of longest continuous Israeli imprisonment until his release last Saturday, Palestinian authorities said.
First arrested in 1985 while fighting Israeli forces along the Jordanian border, the activist in the Fatah party spent a total of 39 years behind bars. Originally from the West Bank city of Bethlehem, he was among the prisoners exiled.


Syria arrests 3 men suspected of links to Tadamon massacre in which hundreds were executed

Syria arrests 3 men suspected of links to Tadamon massacre in which hundreds were executed
Updated 57 min 40 sec ago
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Syria arrests 3 men suspected of links to Tadamon massacre in which hundreds were executed

Syria arrests 3 men suspected of links to Tadamon massacre in which hundreds were executed
  • Masked, rifle-wielding men moved through hollowed-out buildings, remnants of a war that turned the district into a front line between government forces and opposition fighters

TADAMON: Security forces in Syria said on Monday that they arrested three people involved in the execution of hundreds of civilians by government forces in Damascus in 2013, two years after the country’s 13-year civil war began.
Dozens of police and security trucks lined the streets of Tadamon, a Damascus suburb near the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, where they carried out the arrests in the same streets that once bore witness to mass executions. Masked, rifle-wielding men moved through hollowed-out buildings, remnants of a war that turned the district into a front line between government forces and opposition fighters.
In 2022, a leaked video dated April 16, 2013, appeared to contain harrowing footage of the executions. The near seven-minute clip showed members of Syria’s notorious Military Intelligence Branch 227 leading a line of about 40 blindfolded prisoners, their hands tied behind their backs, into an abandoned building in Tadamon. One by one, the gunmen pushed or kicked the prisoners into a trench filled with old tires, shooting them as they fell.
One of the three men arrested was Monzer Al-Jazairi, a resident of the Zahira neighborhood and a former operative with the military security that operated before the fall of President Bashar Assad in December.
Flanked by security men, Al-Jazairi recounted how his forces would bring detainees arrested at checkpoints in groups to the buildings, shoot and kill them and then blow up the buildings. He added that he estimates he and his colleagues killed about 500.
It was unclear whether Al-Jazairi spoke under duress or voluntarily.
Damascus Security Chief Lt. Col. Abdul Rahman Al-Dabbagh corroborated the number, citing additional confessions from those arrested.
“Many of those killed used to be collected at checkpoints and security (detention) centers, brought to Tadamon neighborhood, where they were executed,” Al-Dabbagh told the AP.
The two other arrested suspects were identified as Somer Mohammed Al-Mahmoud and Imad Mohammed Al-Mahmoud.
Years after the Syrian war’s worst massacres and mass disappearances, most alleged crimes have not been investigated and remain unpunished.
Since Assad's ouster, Syrian security forces, under the new leadership led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, once affiliated with al-Qaida, have been tracking down and arresting remnants of the former government and military across the country.
“The operation is ongoing to apprehend all those involved in violations and massacres against Syrians,” Al-Dabbagh said.


Turkish police detain 282 suspects in raids targeting PKK militants

Turkish police detain 282 suspects in raids targeting PKK militants
Updated 18 February 2025
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Turkish police detain 282 suspects in raids targeting PKK militants

Turkish police detain 282 suspects in raids targeting PKK militants
  • The raids came as Turkiye continues to remove elected pro-Kurdish mayors from their posts over militant ties

ISTANBUL: Turkish police detained 282 suspected members of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, militant group in raids over the last five days, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Tuesday.
The raids came as Turkiye continues to remove elected pro-Kurdish mayors from their posts over militant ties in a crackdown coinciding with hopes for an end to a 40-year conflict between the PKK and authorities.
Jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan is expected to make a statement on such efforts, four months after an ally of President Tayyip Erdogan urged him to call on the militants to lay down their arms.
Police carried out this week’s counter-terror raids in 51 provinces, as well as in the capital, Ankara, and the largest city of Istanbul, the minister said on X.
The suspects were accused of conducting PKK propaganda, providing financing for the group, recruiting members and joining in street protests, he said. The police seized two AK 47 rifles among other weapons.
On Saturday, Turkiye removed a pro-Kurdish DEM Party mayor from his post in the eastern province of Van over terrorism-related convictions, taking to eight the number of DEM mayors replaced by state-appointed officials since 2024 elections.
The PKK, designated as a terrorist group by Turkiye and its Western allies, launched its insurgency against the state in 1984. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.


Border town’s residents rebuild in south Lebanon as Hezbollah leader calls for Israeli withdrawal

Border town’s residents rebuild in south Lebanon as Hezbollah leader calls for Israeli withdrawal
Updated 18 February 2025
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Border town’s residents rebuild in south Lebanon as Hezbollah leader calls for Israeli withdrawal

Border town’s residents rebuild in south Lebanon as Hezbollah leader calls for Israeli withdrawal
  • The war has left more than 4,000 people dead and over 16,000 wounded in Lebanon and caused damage worth billions of dollars

KHIAM: Sabah Abdullah comes to her hometown in Lebanon every morning and sits next to her destroyed home. She is waiting for experts from Hezbollah’s construction arm to compensate her for the damage caused by the Israel-Hezbollah war that has left her homeless.
The 66-year-old from Khiam now rents a home in the nearby village of Kawkaba and is repairing her small grocery store, which was badly damaged by the 13-month war that ended in late November as a result of a US-brokered ceasefire. The war has left more than 4,000 people dead and over 16,000 wounded in Lebanon and caused damage worth billions of dollars.
“Damage can be compensated but the loss of souls cannot be replaced,” said Abdullah as she sat on a plastic chair in the sun outside her shop.
Israeli forces will remain in parts of southern Lebanon
The 60-day ceasefire that was supposed to end on Jan. 27 — with an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and the militant Hezbollah group ending its armed presence along the border area — was extended until Tuesday. But an Israeli official said on Monday that Israeli forces will remain in five strategic locations in southern Lebanon after the deadline.
One of these locations is the Hamamis hill on the southern outskirts of Khiam. On Monday, bulldozers could be seen from a distance at work building what appeared to be fortifications in an apparent sign that Israel’s military is planning to stay long beyond Tuesday’s deadline.
Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem said in a speech on Sunday that Israel must withdraw fully from Lebanon on Tuesday, adding that “there is no pretext for five points nor other details.” He said the Lebanese state should prevent Israel from staying in the country after Tuesday as stated in the ceasefire deal.
The Israel-Hezbollah war began a day after Hamas carried out its deadly attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 people hostage and triggering the Israel-Hamas war. The Israel-Hezbollah war intensified as of Sept. 23, when Israel expanded its attacks and killed Hezbollah’s longtime top leader and one of its founders, Hassan Nasrallah.
Widespread damage in Khiam
Khiam, one of the largest towns close to the Israeli border, suffered widespread damage, including entire blocks that were turned to piles of debris. Graffiti left behind by Israeli troops could be seen on the walls as well as inside homes. The town’s cemetery suffered severe damage, with many graves blown out.
On Monday, workers were removing debris in different locations in Khiam as many residents come during the day to spend a few hours at their homes and leave before sunset since the town still has no electricity or running water. New poles were being put in place by the country’s state-run electricity company as the infrastructure suffered severe damage.
“In Khiam everyone was martyred,” read a graffiti on a wall in Arabic. “Khiam is Golani’s graveyard,” another one read, referring to Israel’s Golani Brigade.
In a building on the eastern edge of Khiam, a woman showed a journalist a Star of David sprayed in red at the entrance of her apartment. The woman, who asked not to be named for safety reasons, then walked through her apartment, showing a reporter the damage in the sitting room and kitchen.
Abdallah said when she first came to Khiam days after the ceasefire went into effect in late November, she found that hungry cats and dogs inside her badly damaged shop had eaten cakes, croissants and chocolates. The metal door of her shop was blown wide open, she said.
Seeing her home, built by her late father, destroyed saddened her but Abdallah said she is happy that none of her siblings or relatives were hurt during the war.
‘The future is obscure’
Abdallah said that soon after the war ended, Hezbollah’s construction arm Jihad Al-Binaa paid her $12,000, of which $8,000 were to compensate her for lost furniture and $4,000 for a year’s rent.
Abdallah said that since the Israel-Hezbollah war began, she rented a house in Marakaba and had spent most of her savings and was selling some of her jewelry. She said she is now waiting for government experts to visit her and estimate the losses to pay her for rebuilding her two-story house that she shared with her brother.
“I will rebuild my house but the future is obscure. We live close to the border,” Abdallah said, referring to repeated wars with Israel over the past decades.
Another Khiam resident, Dalal Abdallah, said if Israel decides to stay in Lebanon, Israel will be eventually forced to leave again.
“Valuable blood and souls were paid for this land,” she said. “No one should think that we will leave our land.”


Israel army pulls out of Lebanon border villages, holds five positions: source

Israel army pulls out of Lebanon border villages, holds five positions: source
Updated 53 min 6 sec ago
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Israel army pulls out of Lebanon border villages, holds five positions: source

Israel army pulls out of Lebanon border villages, holds five positions: source
  • Israeli troops had started withdrawing Monday from some border villages, but they seemed poised to stay in key areas
  • Israel’s military said Monday it would remain temporarily ‘in five strategic points’ dotted along the length of the shared border

BEIRUT: Israel’s army has pulled out of southern Lebanese villages but remains in five positions, a Lebanese security source said, as a deadline for the withdrawal expired Tuesday under a peace deal with Hezbollah.
“The Israeli army has withdrawn from all border villages except for five points, while the Lebanese army is gradually deploying due to the presence of explosives in some areas and damage to the roads,” the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

A deadline had expired Tuesday for all Israeli troops to leave south Lebanon under a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah, hours after Israel said it planned to remain in five strategic locations.
Israeli troops had started withdrawing Monday from some border villages, according to a Lebanese security official, but they seemed poised to stay in key areas.
“Israeli forces are beginning to withdraw from border villages, including Mais Al-Jabal and Blida, as the Lebanese army advances,” the official said, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
Hezbollah strongholds in south and east Lebanon and south Beirut saw heavy destruction during two months of all-out war and a year of cross-border hostilities initiated by Hezbollah over the Gaza conflict.
Authorities estimate reconstruction costs could reach more than $10 billion, while more than 100,000 remain internally displaced according to United Nations figures.
Despite the devastation, thousands have been waiting eagerly since the November 27 ceasefire to return home, inspect their properties and in some cases search for the dead under the rubble.
“I miss sitting in front of my house, near my roses and having a morning cup of coffee,” said Fatima Shukeir, in her sixties, who plans to return to her border village after more than a year and a half of displacement.
“I miss everything in Mais Al-Jabal, I miss my neighbors. We were separated and I don’t know where they went,” Shukeir said.
Several border towns and villages, including Mais Al-Jabal’s municipality, have called on displaced residents to wait for the Lebanese army to deploy there before coming back, so as to guarantee their “safe” return.
Lebanese television channel LBCI reported Tuesday that the country’s army had moved overnight into Mais Al-Jabal, Blida, Yaroun, Maroun and Mahbib.
Under the ceasefire, brokered by Washington and Paris, Lebanon’s military was to deploy alongside United Nations peacekeepers as the Israeli army withdrew over a 60-day period that was extended to February 18.
Hezbollah was to pull back north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle remaining military infrastructure there.
Hours before the deadline, Israel’s military said Monday it would remain temporarily “in five strategic points” dotted along the length of the shared border in order to “continue to defend our residents and to make sure there’s no immediate threat.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel would do what it has to in order to “enforce” the ceasefire.
“Hezbollah must be disarmed,” he added.
Lebanese authorities have rejected any extension of the withdrawal period, urging sponsors of the deal to pressure Israel to pull out.
Israeli troops are still present in a handful of villages and towns in southeast Lebanon.
“We’ll go to our town and be happy (again), despite the fact that our homes have been destroyed and we lost young people,” Shukeir said.
On Monday, Ramzi Kaiss from Human Rights Watch said “Israel’s deliberate demolition of civilian homes and infrastructure” was making it “impossible for many residents to return.”
Since the cross-border hostilities began in October 2023, more than 4,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the health ministry.
On the Israeli side of the border, 78 people including soldiers have been killed, according to an AFP tally based on official figures, with an additional 56 troops dead in southern Lebanon during the ground offensive.
Around 60 people have reportedly been killed since the truce began, two dozen of them on January 26 as residents tried to return to border towns on the initial withdrawal deadline.
On Monday evening, Lebanon’s government said the state should be the sole bearer of arms, in a thinly veiled message on Hezbollah’s arsenal.
Calls for the Iran-backed group’s disarmament have multiplied since the end of the war that has weakened the group.


Syrians return to Homs, ‘capital of the revolution’

Syrians return to Homs, ‘capital of the revolution’
Updated 18 February 2025
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Syrians return to Homs, ‘capital of the revolution’

Syrians return to Homs, ‘capital of the revolution’
  • It was in Homs that rebels first took up arms to fight Assad’s crackdown on protests in 2011
  • Since Assad’s ouster, people have started returning to neighborhoods they fled

HOMS, Syria: Once dubbed the capital of the revolution against Bashar Assad, Homs saw some of the fiercest fighting in Syria’s civil war. Now, displaced people are returning to their neighborhoods, only to find them in ruins.
It was in Homs that rebels first took up arms to fight Assad’s crackdown on protests in 2011.
The military responded by besieging and bombarding rebel areas such as Baba Amr, where US journalist Marie Colvin and French journalist Remi Ochlik were killed in a bombing in 2012.
Since Assad’s ouster, people have started returning to neighborhoods they fled following successive evacuation agreements that saw Assad take back control.
“The house is burned down, there are no windows, no electricity,” said Duaa Turki at her dilapidated home in Khaldiyeh neighborhood.
“We removed the rubble, lay a carpet” and moved in, said the 30-year-old mother of four.
“Despite the destruction, we’re happy to be back. This is our neighborhood and our land.”
Her husband spends his days looking for a job, she said, while they hope humanitarian workers begin distributing aid to help the family survive.
The siege of Homs lasted two years and killed around 2,200 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
During the siege, thousands of civilians and rebels were left with nothing to eat but dried foods and grass.
In May 2014, under an evacuation deal negotiated with the former government, most of those trapped in the siege were evacuated, and two years later, Assad seized the last rebel district of Waer.
“We were besieged... without food or water, under air raids, and barrel bombings,” before being evacuated to the rebel-held north, Turki said.
AFP journalists saw dozens of families returning to Homs from northern Syria, many of them tearful as they stepped out of the buses organized by local activists.
Among them was Adnan Abu Al-Ezz, 50, whose son was wounded by shelling during the siege and who later died because soldiers at a checkpoint barred him from taking him to hospital.
“They refused to let me pass, they were mocking me,” he said with tears in his eyes.
“I knew my house was nearly destroyed, but I came back to the precious soil of Homs,” he said.
While protests and fighting spread across Syria over the course of the 13-year war, Homs’s story of rebellion holds profound symbolism for the demonstrators.
It was there that Abdel Basset Al-Sarout, a football goalkeeper in the national youth team, joined the protests and eventually took up arms.
He became something of a folk hero to many before he joined an Islamist armed group and was eventually killed in fighting.
In 2013, his story became the focus of a documentary by Syrian filmmaker Talal Derki named “The Return to Homs,” which won international accolades.
Homs returnee Abu Al-Moatasim, who remembers Sarout, recounted being detained for joining a protest.
When he saw security personnel approaching in a car, he prayed for “God to drop rocket on us so I die” before reaching the detention center, one of a network dotted around the country that were known for torture.
His father bribed an officer in exchange for his release a few days later, he said.
In Baba Amr, for a time early in the war a bastion of the rebel Free Syrian Army, there was rubble everywhere.
The army recaptured the district in March 2012, following a siege and an intense bombardment campaign.
It was there that Colvin and Ochlik were killed in a bombing of an opposition press center.
In 2019, a US court found Assad’s government culpable in Colvin’s death, ordering a $302.5 million judgment for what it called an “unconscionable” attack that targeted journalists.
Touring the building that housed the press center, Abdel Qader Al-Anjari, 40, said he was an activist helping foreign journalists at that time.
“Here we installed the first Internet router to communicate with the outside world,” he said.
“Marie Colvin was martyred here, targeted by the regime because they did not want (anyone) to document what was happening,” he said.
He described her as a “friend” who defied the “regime blackout imposed on journalists” and others documenting the war.
After leaving Homs, Anjari himself became a rebel fighter, and years later took part in the offensive that ousted Assad on December 8, 2024.
“Words cannot describe what I felt when I reached the outskirts of Homs,” he said.
Now, he has decided to lay down his arms.
“This phase does not call for fighters, it calls for people to build a state,” he said.