Israel to free 737 prisoners in first phase of Gaza truce deal

Israel’s justice ministry has said 737 prisoners and detainees will be freed as part of the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal approved Saturday.

It said in a statement on its website that “the government approves” the “release (of) 737 prisoners and detainees” currently in the custody of the prison service.

Israel’s cabinet voted to approve the ceasefire deal early Saturday, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, ending days of uncertainty about whether the truce would go into effect this weekend.

Those named by the ministry include men, women and children who it said will not be released before Sunday at 4:00 p.m. local time (1400 GMT).

It had previously published a list of 95 Palestinian prisoners, the majority women, to be freed in exchange for Israeli captives in Gaza.

Among those on the expanded list was Zakaria Zubeidi, a chief of the armed wing of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party.

Zubeidi escaped from Israel’s Gilboa prison with five other Palestinians in 2021, sparking a days-long manhunt, and is lauded by Palestinians as a hero.

Also to be freed is Khalida Jarar, a leftist Palestinian lawmaker whom Israel arrested and imprisoned on several occasions.

Jarar is a prominent member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group designated a “terrorist organization” by Israel, the United States and the European Union.

Detained in late December in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, the 60-year-old has been held since then without charge.

Two sources close to Hamas told AFP that the first group of hostages to be released consists of three Israeli women soldiers.

However, since the Palestinian Islamist movement considers any Israeli of military age who has completed mandatory service a soldier, the reference could also apply to civilians abducted during the attack that triggered the war.

The first three names on a list obtained by AFP of the 33 hostages set to be released in the first phase are women under 30 who were not in military service on the day of the Hamas attack.

Justice ministry spokeswoman Noga Katz has said the final number of prisoners to be released in the first swap would depend on the number of live hostages released by Hamas.

Source: AFP

--Agencies