Hamas-Israel Prisoner Exchange: An Analytical Study
Dr. Dalvinder Singh Grewal
Professor Emeritus Desh Bhagat University
Dalvinder45@yahoo.co.in
Giving the reasons for the launch of surprise attack on Israel, Muhammad Deif, leader of the military wing of Hamas, said in a recorded message that the group launched an “operation” so that “the enemy will understand that the time of their (a) rampaging without accountability has ended.” He cited (b) Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, which it captured during the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, (c) recent Israeli police raids on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, and (d) the detention of thousands of Palestinians in Israeli jails. The Al-Aqsa Mosque revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as the Temple Mount, is among the most deeply contested sites in the holy land.[1] The detention of thousands of Palestinians in Israeli jails thus comes out to be one of the most important reason which has been played well in the attack on Israel by Hamas.
In April 2022, there were 4,450 Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli prisons – including 160 children, 32 women, and over 1000 "administrative detainees" (indefinitely incarcerated without charge).[2] As of August 2022, more than 700 persons were held in administrative detention, all of them Palestinian including 7 Israeli citizens.[2] According to the Israeli rights group HaMoked, as of 2023, there are over 1,000 detainees, the highest figure since 2003.[3] On 2 May 2023, Khader Adnan passed away following an 87-day hunger strike while in administrative detention for the 12th time.[4] In August 2023, 1,264 Palestinians were held in administrative detention in Israel, without charge or trial, the highest number in three decades.[5][6] After the start of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, the number of Palestinians held in administrative detention rose from 1,319 to 2,070 between 1 October and 1 November.[7][8][9][10] According to data from the Israeli human rights group HaMoked, as of November 2023, Israel holds 6,809 “security prisoners.” Of these, 2,313 are serving a prison sentence; 2,321 have not yet been convicted in court; 2,070 are being held under administrative detention (indefinitely imprisoned without trial or due process); and 105 are “illegal combatants” who were arrested during Hamas’ October 7 attacks in southern Israel.
Almost all of the 300 Palestinians considered for release are relatively new prisoners, arrested in the last year or two. The exceptions are 10 women from Jerusalem and the West Bank who have been imprisoned since 2015-17, most of them on charges of attempting or committing stabbing attacks against Israeli security forces — some of which ended without any harm, while others caused minor to moderate injuries.
All of this, it should be recalled, is overseen by the same judicial system that, among countless other examples, decided to close the case against an Israeli settler who stabbed a young Palestinian to death in May 2022 because “it was not possible to rule out [the suspect’s] version that he acted in self-defense.” It is the same system that, in July of this year, acquitted an Israeli police officer who shot dead Iyad al-Hallaq, an autistic Palestinian man, despite clear testimonies and video evidence proving he was unarmed and made no threat of any kind. This is in addition to the fact that Palestinian “security prisoners” are judged in a separate military court system that boasts a conviction rate of between 95 to 99 percent. Lenience, in the eyes of the Israeli apartheid regime, is a right reserved for Jews only.
While Jews who riot, attack, and even kill Palestinians are immune from prosecution, the prisoners list reminds us that Palestinians can be arrested wholesale based solely on the “intention” to carry out a violent act. One of those on the list, a 45-year-old woman from Jerusalem, has been in prison for more than two years because “she was caught in the Old City with a knife in her hand,” and “said that she intended to carry out an attack.” Meanwhile, Israel’s Kahanist national security minister is urging Jews to arm themselves while handing out weapons like candy, and many right-wing Israelis are writing countless messages, in public and private, gleefully announcing their intention to “murder as many Arabs as possible.” Sometimes “intent” doesn’t even appear on the list of charges. An 18-year-old from Jerusalem was “arrested along with others because he cried out ‘Allahu Akbar.’” An 18-year-old woman from the West Bank has been imprisoned for months for “incitement on Instagram.” The Palestine prisoners have been treated very badly. Israeli army abuses Palestinian prisoners. Though utterly forbidden, the torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian detainees has been to the extreme. [11][12][13[14]
In my earlier article I have specially mentioned that purpose of Hamas of attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 was the outburst against continuous repression of Palestinians by putting them in jail for minor offences and encroachment of Palestinian lands by Israel, non-acceptance of Palestine as an independent authority, abduct as many Israelis as they could. Hamas knows that they do not have any military power to fight with Israel. Above all USA and Europe had been backing Israel feverishly. In that case their fight has to be of different type where they gain something worthwhile. One major problem was the Palestinians being made prisoners at a large scale and held without trial for ages. This has made them to feel that under the eyes of Israel they are even worse than slaves. Hamas found abduction of Israelis is the only way to get their prisoners released from Israel. This exchange process is not new between the two. To get their people back from Israeli prisons they have been abducting Israelis since 1948 and getting their people released from Israeli jails. Israeli prisoner exchanges refer to exchanges of prisoners during the Arab–Israeli conflict. Israel has exchanged POWs with its Arab neighbors, and has released about 7,000 Palestinian prisoners to secure freedom for 19 Israelis and to retrieve the bodies of eight others.
The exchange was agreed upon with the mediation of Qatar, Egypt and USA. Israel said on Tuesday that 10 of its citizens and two Thai nationals were freed by Hamas and had been returned to Israel, bringing the total number of freed captives to 86 from about 240 people taken to the Gaza Strip after Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel. Soon after, Israel released 30 Palestinians from its jails, bringing the total number of freed prisoners to 180. The list of released Palestinians included the names of 15 children – 12 from Jerusalem and three from the occupied West Bank – and 15 women – five from Jerusalem and 10 from the West Bank. In addition Israel freed 30 Palestinians after 10 Israelis and two foreigners were released by Hamas in Gaza. With this, the pause in Israel bombing has been extended to 6 days. It may go on with the release of more prisoners. [15]
The first exchanges took place after the 1948 Arab-Isreli war when Israel exchanged all its about 5000 Palestinian prisoners and POWs from Arab armies in exchange for all Israeli soldiers and civilians taken captive during the war.[16]
On December 8, 1954, a five-man Israel Defecne Forces (IDF) patrol operating on the Syrian border was abducted and tortured by the Syrian Army. One of the soldiers, Uri Ilan, committed suicide while in captivity after being falsely informed by his captors that his fellow soldiers had been killed.
[2][3] The four surviving POWs and Ilan's body were returned on March 29, 1956, in exchange for 40 Syrian soldiers captured during various Israeli military operations.[16]
Following the 1956 Suez Crisis, Israel exchanged 5,500 Egyptian prisoners captured during the campaign and 77 others who were captured during military operations from before the war, in exchange for an Israeli pilot taken prisoner during the war, and three soldiers taken captive in pre-war attacks.[16]
On February 21, 1962, Syria exchanged the body of an Israeli soldier it was holding for a Syrian soldier in Israeli captivity.[16]
On December 21, 1963, 11 Israeli soldiers and civilians captured by Syria throughout the years since Israel's independence were exchanged for 18 Syrian prisoners in Israel. [16]
During the 1967 Six Day war, Israel took 4,338 Egyptian soldiers and 899 civilians, 553 Jordanian soldiers and 366 civilians, and 367 Syrian soldiers and 205 civilians captive, while 15 Israeli soldiers and the bodies of two more fell into Arab captivity. All of them were released following the war. Israeli spies imprisoned in Egypt since the 1950s, two Israeli naval commanders captured shortly after the war, and the body of an Israeli soldier who was abducted a year before the war and subsequently died in prison were also released.[16]
On April 2, 1968, 12 Jordanian soldiers taken prisoner during the Battle of Karameh were released in exchange for the body of a missing Israeli soldier. The Jordanians were supposed to have returned two more bodies, but the coffins were found to contain only dirt, and the soldiers are still considered missing.[16]
In July, 1968 an El-Al airliner was hijacked to Algeria. The twelve Israeli crewmen and passengers were exchanged for 16 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. The Israeli government later denied that there had been a deal.[17].
[4]
On December 7, 1969, two Israeli citizens whose plane was hijacked to Damascus, and two Israeli pilots, Giora Rom and Nissim Ashkenazi who were shot down over the Suez Canal in the War of Attrition, were exchanged for 71 Egyptian and Syrian prisoners held in Israel.
On January 1, 1970, a night watchman in Metulla, Shmuel Rosenwasser, was abducted by Fatah. More than a year later Rosenwasser was freed in exchange for Mahmoud Hijazi, a Fatah prisoner in Israel. [18]
[5] Hijazi was wounded and captured in Fatah's first military attack on Israel, January 1, 1965, and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
On June 9, 1972, an IDF force captured 5 Syrian officers patrolling near the Israel-Lebanon border, and they were exchanged for 3 Israeli pilots in Syrian captivity.[16]
On June 3, 1973, 3 Israeli Air Force pilots in Syrian captivity for three years were exchanged for 46 Syrian prisoners. [16]
During the October 1973 Yom Kippur War, Egypt and Syria took 293 Israeli prisoners, while Israel captured 8,372 Egyptians, 392 Syrians, 13 Iraqis, and 6 Moroccans. All these prisoners were exchanged during November 15–22, 1973. During the exchange, both sides also swapped prisoners from the War of Attrition. [16]
On April 4, 1975, Egypt returned the bodies of 39 IDF soldiers killed during the Yom Kippur War in exchange for 92 terrorists and security prisoners held in Israel.[16]
In June 1975, Israel released 20 prisoners from the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula. In exchange, Egypt gave Israel the bodies of Eliyahu Hakim and Eliyahi Bet-Zuri, two Jewish fighters of the pre-state underground militia Lehi who had been hanged in 1945 for having assassinated British politician Lord Moyne in Cairo in November 1944.
During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon (the Litani Opeeration) IDF soldier Avraham Amram was captured in a clash on April 5, 1978, with Palestinian PFLP-GC forces near Rashidieh camp in South Lebanon. Four other Israeli soldiers were killed while two others managed to escape to Israeli held territory. He was exchanged March 14, 1979, for 76 convicted Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, 20 of whom "with blood on their hands." [19] The prisoner swap was described as Israel's "first prisoner exchange with an Arab terrorist organization"[12][20] Among those released in the exchange was Hafez Dalkamoni, who would later be described as one of the “key-aids” of Ahmed Jbril, the leader of the PFLP-GC. In 1988 he was arrested in West Germany on suspicion of terrorist activities. He is believed by some to have led the cell that carried out the Lockeerbie bombing.[21]
On September 3, 1982, four Palestinian Fatah fighters surprised an IDF outpost near Bhamdoun in central Lebanon. The commander of the Palestinian squad was Eissa Hajjo. Eight IDF soldiers from the Nahal Brigade surrendered without a fight and were taken prisoners by the Palestinians. Their behavior was deemed "unacceptable" by IDF Chief of Staff Moshe levy. [22] The pro-SyrianPFLC-GCled by Ahmad Jibril, helped the Fatah fighters and their prisoners with transportation away from the frontline. PFLP-GC kept two of the Israeli prisoners.
Six of these soldiers (Eliyahu Abutbul, Danny Gilboa, Rafael Hazan, Reuven Cohen, Avraham Mindvelsky, and Avraham Kronenfeld) were released November 23, 1983, in exchange for 4,765 Palestinians and Lebanese imprisoned at Ansar camp during the 1982 Lebanon war and 65 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.[23][24
In 1984 Israel swapped 291 Syrian prisoners and the bodies of 72 others in exchange for six Israeli prisoner and five bodies.[25]
The remaining two soldiers from the Bhamdoun raid in the hands of PFLP-GC (Yosef Grof and Nissim Salem), as well as a third IDF prisoner (Hezi Shai)) captured during the battle of Sultn Ya’quob, also held by the PFLP-GC, were released May 20, 1985, in an exchange known as the Jibril Agreement for 1,150 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Among those released were 380 prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment.[24]
Israel has released Palestinians in prisoner exchange agreements concluded with various Palestinian militia factions. In 1985, Israel released 1,150 prisoners, including Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, in exchange for three Israeli POWs being held by Ahmed Jibril.[25] The 1995 Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip called for the release of Palestinian detainees in stages, as part of a series of "confidence-building measures".[26][27] Upon the Israeli withdrawal from populated Palestinian centers in 1995, many Palestinians in military jails were transferred to jails inside Israel, which some Palestinian activists said was a breach of articles 49 and 76 of the Geneva Conventions prohibiting deportations.[28][29]
During the so-called "Jibril deal" several controversial prisoners, such as Kozo Okamoto were released. [16][23][24][30]
July 1985 – Israel frees more than 700 Lebanese detainees. Shi'ite leaders say their freedom was guaranteed in exchange for the return of 39 foreign passengers from the hijacking of TWA flight 847 Israel denies a connection.[31]
On September 12, 1991, the body of IDF Druz soldier Samir Assad, was returned to Israel in exchange for two members of the Palestinian DFLP faction. Assad was killed outside
Sidon in 1983.[16]
Two Israeli soldiers, Yosef Fink and Rachmim Alsheich, were killed in a Hezbollah attack on an IDF roadblock atBeit Yahoun in southern Lebanon on July 17, 1986. Their bodies were retained by the Lebanese and only released on July 21, 1996, in exchange for the bodies of 123 Lebanese fighters held by Israel.[16] Hezbollah released 17 soldiers from the South Labanon Army (SLA) while the SLA released 45 detainees from the Khiam prison.[32]
On May 25, 1998, the remains of IDF soldier Itamar Ilyah was exchanged for 65 Lebanese prisoners and the bodies of 40 Hezbollah fighters and Lebanese soldiers captured by Israel.
[10] Among those returned to Lebanon, were the remains of Hadi Nasrallah, the son of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hasan Nasrullah, who was killed in a clash with IDF the year before. Ilyah was killed in a devastating Hezbollah ambush at Ansaria, where 12 soldiers from the elite naval commando unit Shavetet 13 were killed on September 5, 1997.[16]
In 2003, Israel released the remains of two Hezbollah members, in exchange for allowing a German mediator to visit the Israeli Col. Elhanan Tannebaum held by Hezbollah, kidnapped in Dubai in 2000.[25]
Over 400 Palestinian and 30 Lebanese prisoners, including Hezbollah leaders ash-Sheikh Abdul-Karim and Mustfa Dirani, as well as the remains of 59 Lebanese killed by Israel, were exchanged in 2004 for the bodies of three IDF soldiers (Adi Avitan, Benny Avraham and Omar Souad) captured in the Sheba Farms area in 2000 as well as Elhanan Tannebaum .[23]
In October 2007 Israel and Hezbollah agreed to exchange Hassan Aqil, a civilian Hezbollah member captured in 2006, and the remains of two Hezbollah fighters killed in the 2006 Lebanon war and subsequently brought to Israel, for the remains of Gabriel Dwait, an Israeli resident who drowned in 2005 and was washed ashore in Lebanon[25][26] .
In January 2008 Hezbollah Secretary General Hasan nasarullah held a speech at the annual
Ashura celebration in Beirut where he accused Israel of dragging its feet in the prisoner exchange negotiations. He also disclosed that the organization, apart from two captive soldiers, were also holding the partial remains of several other soldiers killed in the war. He claimed that the IDF had "lied" to the relatives when they returned supposedly intact bodies for burial [27].
[17]
Nasrallah's speech aimed at speeding up the negotiations with Israel but it created a lot of bad blood in Israel, both among the relatives of those who were led to believe that their bodies had been buried intact and among Israeli politicians who accused Hezbollah of waging "psychological warfare" against Israel. Several ministers called for the "elimination" of the Hezbollah leader.[28][29]
On June 1, 2008, Israel released the Lebanese prisoner Nasim Nisr, in exchange for which Hezbollah handed over the partial remains of up to 20 Israeli soldiers killed during the 2006 Lebnon War.[30][31]
In July 2008 Israel released long time serving Lebanese prisoner Samir al-Quntar, four Hezbollah fighters captured in the 2006 Lebanonn War and the bodies of 199 Palestinian, Lebanese of Arab fighters captured by Israel in the past three decades. Kuntar had been convicted for his role in the 1979 Nahariya Attack, which resulted in the deaths of four Israelis, including two small children. According to eyewitness accounts, Kuntar bludgeoned a four-year-old girl to death[32][33]. In exchange Hezbollah released the bodies of two Israeli soldiers (Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev) captured in a cross border rraid July 12, 2006. [34]
On October 18, 2011, captured IDF tank gunner Gilad Shalit, captured by the Palestinian militant organization Hamas in 2006, was released in exchange for 1027 Plestine Prisoners held in Israel. [35]
the 2023 Israel-Hamas war, a series of exchanges were made between Israel and Hamas to exchange militant-held hostages for Palestinian prisoners. The negotiations were brokered by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States, and were part of a temporary ceasefire agreement.[36]
In November 2023, in exchange for the 240 hostages taken on Hamas' October 7th attack,[37][38] Israel propositioned to release 300 prisoners, most of them women and children.[39] Over two-thirds of these prisoners had not been formally convicted of any crime or charged with any crime.[39] As of November 28th, 150 prisoners have been released.[40] Israel has banned large gatherings in the West Bank, making celebrating these returns difficult.[38]
Conclusion
Abduction has thus been a successful method for Palestinians as Israelis are very touchy about their people in Palestine control and have been exchanging their soldiers and civilians for Palestinian prisoners. Hence Hamas abducted 240 or so Israelis so that it could exchange its prisoners for Israelis and also use the large number for pressing for a ceasefire and have an independence and un-interfered status as a state.
References
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Explained | What we know about the Hamas attack and Israel's response.
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[31]Yuval Azoulay (January 22, 2008). "Nasrallah reopens bereaved family's wounds". Haaretz. Retrieved January 6, 2012.
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[37].Radford, Antoinette; Subramaniam, Tara; Edwards, Christian; Upright, Ed; Sangal, Aditi; Hammond, Elise; Vera, Amir (27 November 2023). "33 Palestinians were released from Israeli prisons Monday, prison service says". CNN. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
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