Awad Rjoub and Rania Abu Shamala
23 February 2025•Update: 23 February 2025
RAMALLAH, Palestine
Israel’s delay in releasing detainees in the seventh batch of a prisoner exchange deal with Hamas constitutes “organized terrorism and abuse of prisoners,” the Palestinian Prisoner Society said Saturday.
The group said it is “carried out by the occupation against the freed prisoners and their families, especially amid the bitter cold.”
“The occupation has not left any tool of humiliation, abuse, or torture unused against the prisoners and their families,” it added.
The Israeli army launched a series of raids in various areas of the West Bank, which included arrests and warnings to the families of prisoners who are expected to be released Saturday.
The Palestinian Prisoner Society pointed out that the occupation “has not only committed crimes against the prisoners but has also engaged in organized terrorism against their families, through threats that border on arrest and murder, home raids, and acts of vandalism and destruction within their homes.”
It added that “the aim of all these crimes and threats is not only to attempt to kill and rob them of the joy of freedom, but also to undermine the status of the Palestinian prisoner in the Palestinian collective consciousness.”
Israel postponed the release of Palestinian prisoners Saturday in the seventh batch in the Gaza ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal, citing Hamas' delivery of a wrong body instead of detained Israeli Shiri Bibas on Thursday.
Israeli authorities were set to release 620 Palestinian prisoners as part of the seventh batch of the first phase of the deal.
Earlier in the day, the Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, handed over six Israeli captives to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Rafah, Nuseirat and Gaza City.
The ceasefire deal took effect last month, halting Israel’s genocidal war, which has killed more than 48,300 victims, mostly women and children, and left the enclave in ruins.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November for Israeli Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
