The prisoners were mostly teenage boys and women, and most of them hadn’t been convicted of a crime after being arrested on allegations ranging from stone throwing to attempted murder.
Topline
Israel released 39 Palestinians it was holding in its Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank on Friday as part of a deal for the release of Israeli hostages Hamas took during its Oct. 7 attack—the Palestinians released were mostly teenage boys and women, a vast majority had not yet been convicted of a crime and many had been imprisoned for years.Key Facts
Seventeen of the released Palestinian prisoners are minors and, of those 17, 15 are boys and two were girls, while the remaining 22 are adult women, Al Jazeera reported.
Israel holds 2,200 Palestinians in detention under its controversial “administrative detention” policy that Israel says is a counter-terrorism measure it uses against people who plan to commit future offenses, according to the AP.
The released prisoners include Iyas Khatib, 17, the son of a U.N. aid worker who was put in “administrative detention” last year based on secret evidence without being publicly charged of a crime or put on trial, the Associated Press reported.
The prisoners also include Marah Bakeer, 24, who was a 16-year-old high school student in occupied East Jerusalem when Israeli forces shot at and arrested her for allegedly trying to stab an Israeli officer, an accusation Bakeer and her family deny, Al Jazeera reported.
The 39 are part of a list of 300 Palestinians Israel said it was considering releasing as part of its deal with Hamas—some on the list were held on minor charges like throwing stones (though some were held on charges as serious as attempted murder), less than a quarter of them were convicted of a crime and most were being held on remand while awaiting a trial, the BBC reported.
Other common offenses the prisoners have been accused of include threatening security officers, entering Israel illegally without a permit, supporting terrorism and associating with hostile or unknown organizations, Al Jazeera reported.
