30 Palestinians were freed from Israeli Occupation prisons on November 28, as part of the deal signed last week between the Israeli government and Hamas to exchange Israelis detained on October 7 for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. The 15 women and 15 children were the fifth group of Palestinians who have been released amid the ongoing temporary ceasefire in Gaza, which is set to expire in the early hours of November 30.
As negotiations continued on November 29 for the potential extension of the ceasefire agreement, the Palestinian Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs has published the list of women and children who are set to be released on Wednesday.
Among them is 22-year-old activist Ahed Tamimi, who was among the Palestinians abducted during the IOF’s mass detention campaigns in the Occupied West Bank over the past two months.
She was arrested on “suspicion of inciting violence and terrorist activities”. Ahed’s father, Bassem Tamimi, had been detained by Israeli forces a week prior.
Among those released on Tuesday is 14-year-old Ahmad Salayme, one of the 500 to 700 Palestinian children that Israel abducts, prosecutes in a military court, and imprisons on a yearly basis.
Describing the conditions in the Damon prison, Salayme said, “[On October 7th], they closed all sections, we heard the women’s voices when they were hit in the women’s section…the repression unit was coming to us but they were prevented.”
Also freed on Tuesday night was 23-year-old Ruba Assi, who had been arrested by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in the West Bank in 2020 for her activism as a student at Birzeit University. After nearly a year, she was sentenced to 21 months in prison and handed multiple suspended sentences on charges including membership of an illegal organization and throwing stones. Assi was released in 2022, but was re-arrested after October 7.
“We renew our faith in the Palestinian resistance in all places of their presence. This present freedom will extend to the complete freedom for Palestine and its people,” she said upon her release.
Assi also described the brutal violence unleashed upon Palestinian political prisoners in the past seven weeks, including the denial of food and water for long periods of time, people being forced to sleep on the floor without mattresses, and strip searches and beatings by Occupation jailers.
Palestinian children have similarly described abuse in detention. 17-year-old Mohamaad Nazzal, who had been held at the Naqab desert prison, told reporters that Israeli units constantly stormed the rooms in the prison and severely beat the prisoners. “There is an elderly prisoner who I think died as a result of beatings. After he lost consciousness, he was taken from the room and we did not know anything about him. Another one lost his memory”.
“The prison became a graveyard following October 7,” he said. At least six Palestinians have been killed in Occupation prisons since October 7.
Also read: Israel escalates violence against Palestinian prisoners, rights groups warn of “campaign of assassination and torture”
Nazzal sustained serious injuries, including fractures, on both his hands after being beaten by Israeli forces. It was only a week later when he was released that the child received medical treatment.
Prisoner advocacy organization Addameer has noted that Israeli forces deliberately assaulted Palestinian detainees and their families during the release operations. The release was delayed, and some children were left barefoot in the cold weather.
When the buses arrived carrying liberated Palestinian prisoners, Israeli occupation forces used sound bombs, rubber bullets, tear gas, and live ammunition against people gathered outside the Ofer prison to receive their family members. Occupation forces have also raided the homes of several of the Palestinian children slated for release.
Of the 259 Palestinians who could potentially be released in exchange for Israeli civilians detained by Hamas, 226 are children while the rest are women.
The horror of Israeli prisons
Even before October 7, Palestinian prisoners have been subjected to severe human rights violations.
A report by Save The Children released in July found that 86% of children detained by the Occupation had experienced physical and emotional abuse. 70% had been threatened with harm, 60% were hit with sticks or guns, and 69% were strip searched during interrogation. Children have also reported being placed in solitary confinement and being subjected to sexual abuse.
This is not withstanding the fundamental illegality and illegitimacy of the Israeli Occupation’s apartheid military judicial system which imprisons tens of thousands of Palestinians each year with a conviction rate of over 99.7%.
According to Addameer, “it is estimated that every family in the West Bank has had at least one member arrested, tried and/or imprisoned by the Israeli military authorities.”
28-year-old Maysoon al-Jabali, who was imprisoned by the occupation for eight years before being released earlier this week, told reporters that prisoners were “suffocating” as they were not allowed to go outside.
The denial of food, which Israel has deployed as a systematic policy against all of Gaza, has been implemented in Occupation prisons: “There is no food, the food portion that is meant for ten people is shared by eighty women…so many women tainted due to a drop in [blood] pressure and sugar levels…We were sprayed with gas…they took some of us to solitary confinement,” Jabali said.
Despite Israel’s attempt to fragment and isolate the Palestinian people— not just physically through the siege of Gaza and the military checkpoints it has set up across the Occupied Territories and its apartheid legal and judicial system— they stand united in their struggle for liberation.
“We have great confidence in our Resistance that it will liberate all prisoners. Not just prisoners, but it will also liberate our land. Our freedom is part of Palestine’s complete freedom,” said Yassmin Shaaban, one of the female detainees released this week.
Even as the Israeli occupation has halted it’s seven-weeks long bombardment of Gaza, it has continued its barbaric assault on the Occupied West Bank, killing over 240 people. The IOF killed two Palestinian children on Wednesday during what is being described as the largest raid on Jenin since last month.
These raids are part of an ongoing mass abduction campaign in the West Bank. According to the detainees and ex-detainees commission, Israel had arrested 3,325 Palestinians since October 7 as of November 29.
