Israel’s Justice Ministry announced that 737 prisoners and detainees will be released, marking the initial phase of the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release agreement, which was ratified last Saturday.
A statement on the ministry’s website confirmed the government’s decision to release these individuals, currently in the custody of the prison service, no earlier than Sunday at 4:00 PM local time (1400 GMT).
The Israeli cabinet, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, officially approved the ceasefire deal early Saturday, concluding days of speculation about the truce’s commencement over the weekend. The ministry’s announcement specified that the group set for release includes men, women, and children.
Specific Prisoners and Conditions
Initially, the ministry had released a list of 95 Palestinian prisoners, predominantly women, slated for exchange for Israeli captives held in Gaza. High-profile figures on the expanded list include Zakaria Zubeidi, a leader of the armed faction of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party, known for his escape from Israel’s Gilboa prison in 2021.
Khalida Jarar, a well-known leftist Palestinian lawmaker and member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group recognized as a “terrorist organization” by Israel, the United States, and the European Union, will also be freed. Jarar was detained in late December in the West Bank, which has been under Israeli occupation since 1967 and has been held without charges since her arrest.
Hostage Release Details
According to two sources close to Hamas, as communicated to AFP, the initial group of hostages to be released includes three Israeli women soldiers. However, since Hamas views any Israeli of military age who has completed mandatory service as a soldier, this classification could extend to civilians captured during the conflict that initiated the war. The first three names on the AFP-obtained list of 33 hostages to be released are women under 30, who were not in military service at the time of the Hamas attack.
Justice Ministry spokesperson Noga Katz noted that the exact number of prisoners to be released in the first exchange would correlate with the number of live hostages released by Hamas. This release forms a critical component of the broader ceasefire agreement aimed at de-escalating one of the region’s most enduring and volatile conflicts.
