Israel freed 69 Palestinian women and 21 teenagers

Hamas reported that among the 90 Palestinian prisoners released today, as part of the ceasefire agreement with Israel, there are 69 women and 21 teenage boys from the West Bank and Jerusalem. The prisoners, most of them freed from Ofer prison in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, were welcomed by thousands of cheering people.

Among the released prisoners is the 62-year-old Khalida Jarrar, Palestinian leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)who was welcomed by relatives upon her arrival in Ramallah. Jarrar is a leading member of the PFLP, a secular leftist faction involved in attacks against Israel in the 1970s but which later scaled back militant activities. Since her arrest in late 2023, she has been held in indefinite renewable administrative detention, a widely criticized practice that Israel uses against Palestinians. “We are experiencing this double sensation, on the one hand, this feeling of freedom, for which we thank everyone, and on the other, this pain, for the loss of so many Palestinian martyrs,” the woman told The Associated Press.

Among the other released prisoners is Bushra al-Tawil, a Palestinian journalist jailed in Israel in March 2024. “The wait was extremely hard. But thank God, we were sure that at any moment we would be released,” the journalist said. She also became free again Shatha Jarabaa, 24, who was arrested over a social media post which criticized the “brutality” of Israel’s military operation in Gaza. “I’m very happy! Thank God I’m out. They treated me very badly in prison. It was horrible,” the blogger told the Guardian.

“They arrested me because my brother died during a shooting in Jenin. They broke into our cells on Saturday before freeing us and threw tear gas at us. They tortured us in the cells, every day. They also tortured and mistreated the women,” he said Ahmad Khsha, 18, who was arrested in January 2024 in Jenin. Another teenager released is Qassem Jafra, 17 years old, who immediately cut his hair when he returned home.

The release of 90 Palestinian prisoners follows within hours the release of three Israeli women, held hostage by Hamas in tunnels under Gaza, ending a protracted ordeal that began with their violent abduction by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Among among the women released there is also the British citizen Emily Damari, 28 years old, freed together with Romi Gonen, 24 years old and Doron Steinbrecher, 31 years old. The women found their mothers after being handed over by the International Committee for the Red Cross.