In Israel, the release of captives from Gaza has been celebrated, each welcomed home to scenes of joy on the streets of the country.
Palestinians, on the other hand, were told that no such thing was to be allowed for their prisoners released by Israel. In fact, any attempt at welcoming home the prisoners was explicitly banned by Israel.
In an incident highlighting the tensions, Israeli army launched a retaliatory operation just one day after the release of Ashraf Zghair, a 46-year-old Palestinian who had been imprisoned since the age of 23 and was serving six life sentences.
When neighbours and family members openly celebrated Zghair’s release on Saturday, January 25, authorities arrested his brother Amir, a father of four.
Mounir Zghair, the official spokesperson for the Jerusalem Prisoners of War Association and Ashraf’s father, condemned the arrest in an interview.
“The arrest of my son has no legal basis,” he said. “We were not officially informed about what rules we were supposedly violating.”
This incident epitomises the broader pattern of restrictions imposed on Palestinian prisoners and their families. One family, speaking on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation, revealed the extent of these limitations
“We are not allowed to host reception parties or distribute sweets,” the family told Al Jazeera. “The released detainees are also banned from speaking to any form of media under the threat of re-arrest. It’s the occupation’s way of restricting prisoners’ freedom even after their release.”
Israel has framed the release of Palestinian prisoners as a necessary evil and brokered through an agreement with a “terrorist organisation”. It therefore considers any celebration of their release to be support for “terrorism”.
“The consequences of celebrating are many, including the arrest of released prisoners’ family members for supporting a terror organisation, as in the case of Ashraf Zghair’s brother, who was arrested for welcoming his released brother with ‘green flags’,” said Mohamed Mahmoud, a lawyer who works on Palestinian prisoner cases. Hamas’s flag is green, but so are many other flags representing Palestinian groups or Islamic causes.
Prisoner conditions
The ceasefire’s future is currently uncertain. Hamas said on Monday that it would suspend the release of captives scheduled for Saturday because of Israeli violations of the agreement. Israel has responded by threatening to restart the bombing of Gaza if the captives are not released.
Much of the focus in the days prior to Hamas’s announcement was on the condition the three Israeli captives released from Gaza on Saturday were in – all appearing emaciated. However, there has been little focus on the large number of Palestinian prisoners emerging from Israeli jails in similar states, many of whom have been taken to hospital.
One of the Palestinians released in late January was 18-year-old Adam al-Hadra, who had been detained from the occupied West Bank in November 2023.
“When I found out that I was included in the deal, I came back to life. It was an indescribable feeling. What hurt the most was being away from my family, not to mention the humiliation, hunger, and illness we suffered in occupation prisons,” he told Al Jazeera.
However, al-Hadra’s freedom came with immediate restrictions. Within days of his release, he was prohibited from entering the Old City of Jerusalem – “one more way the occupation imposes its authority on Palestinians”, he noted. Al-Hadra’s lawyer told Al Jazeera that no reason was given by the Israeli authorities for the restrictions.
Potential for re-arrest
Many of the Palestinians arrested are liable to be re-arrested by Israel, and many who were involved in previous exchanges have been.
Legal expert Nadia Daqqa highlighted significant concerns about the release process.
“The prisoners were released without providing any legal documents explaining the framework of their release,” she explained. “This poses a major problem because Israeli law now allows the government to re-arrest prisoners as soon as the political or security interest ends.”
This keeps the prisoners in a “legal limbo”, Daqqa emphasised, adding that the lack of documentation may limit lawyers’ ability to protect and defend them in case they are re-arrested.
While al-Hadra had been sentenced to three years in prison, thousands of Palestinians are also held by Israel in what is called “administrative detention”, a process by which Israel holds detainees without charge. Previously, a far smaller number of Israelis were also held in administrative detention, but the Israeli government has now openly stated that it will only be applied to Palestinians.
Qassem Jaafra, another 18-year-old among those released in late January, was among those held in administrative detention.
“I was only told half an hour before my release,” he said. “I was missing my family, friends, and school, but it also hurt to leave my close friends behind in prison.”
According to the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem, more than 3,300 Palestinians are currently in administrative detention.
A report by the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor published earlier this month provided a scathing critique of the detention system.
It concluded that Israeli prisons and detention centres constitute a “systematic framework inherently aimed at torturing and mistreating Palestinian prisoners and detainees, while depriving them of their most basic human rights”.
The report further argued that the systematic mistreatment of Palestinians is made possible by the long history of impunity Israel enjoys from the United States and European governments, representing a grave violation of international detention standards.
But despite the overwhelming challenges, hope persists.
As Al-Hadra concludes: “After hardship comes ease.”
This article is published in collaboration with Egab.
