By BEITUNIA, West Bank — Tears, cheers and celebrations greeted 90 Palestinian women and children released as part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas just after midnight on Monday.
Families and onlookers waited for hours in the cold to greet their loved before white buses transported them out of Ofer Prison, an Israeli facility in the occupied West Bank. A celebratory mood coursed through the crowd, with some families sharing food and cotton candy being sold on the street.
Children carrying balloons lit up with fairy lights ran around, while men sang around a blazing fire. Some people carried flags in support of the Hamas militant group before the prisoners, including a teenager and a political activist, were freed.
Three Israeli women — Doron Steinbrecher, 31, Emily Damari, 28, and Romi Gonen, 24 — were released Sunday, the first of the hostages held by Hamas to be freed as part of an agreement that ends the fighting in Gaza after almost 15 months of war.
Here’s what we know about the freed Palestinians.
Shortly after her sister Jeneen Amro was released, Boshara Amro, 21, said in a voice note that her feelings were “indescribable.”
“She’s my big sister,” Amro, 21, said. “She’s like a mother to me, in her kindness and in everything she does.”
During that time, she said, she had no contact with Jeneen, 23, and was unable to visit her in prison. Her freedom brings “feelings of joy, happiness and pleasure,” Amro said. But she added that her family was appalled by her sister’s “very bad mental state, especially the mental and physical stress she was subjected to.”
Her sister, she said, was “in a state of shock” from her time in detention.
Before her sister was released, Amro said, her family had not been told why Jeneen was detained in their home city of Hebron in the West Bank. The Israeli military and the country’s prison’s service did not immediately respond to questions about why she was arrested.
Palestinian prisoners wave from a Red Cross bus as they are driven out of Israel’s Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank.John Wessels / AFP – Getty Images
Mahmoud Aliowat, 15, was the youngest detainee to be released, according to a list Hamas provided to The Associated Press. It is unclear where he was detained and for how long.
Also on the list was Khalida Jarrar, 62, a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which the U.S. deemed a terror organization in 1997 and 2001. The Treasury Department also accused it of participating in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel.
Khalida Jarrar after her release.Zain Jaafar / AFP – Getty Images
As Jarrar was led through a cheering crowd, several people helped her walk and many on social media commented that her once dark hair had grayed during her time in custody. Others suggested the former lawmaker looked exhausted.
Rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have suggested that Jarrar, an outspoken critic of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, has been targeted by Israeli authorities for her political activities.
Since her arrest at her home in the West Bank city of Ramallah in late 2023, Jarrar has been held under indefinitely renewable administrative detention, the widely criticized practice under which Israel holds detainees indefinitely without trial or other legal proceedings based on evidence that is not shared with either the detainee or their families.
A Palestinian woman embraces her son in the occupied West Bank town of Beitunia. Zain Jaafar / AFP – Getty Images
Dalal Khaseeb, 53, was also on the list provided to the AP, which reported she is the sister of Saleh Arouri, the former commander of Hamas’ military wing in the West Bank and deputy chairman of the group’s political bureau. He was killed in January with six other members of the organization after his home in a suburb in southern Beirut was targeted by a drone strike.
Her son Muhammad Khaseeb, from Ramallah, told the Middle East Eye website that she was detained “a year ago.”
What next?
First announced on Wednesday, the 42-day first phase of the three-part ceasefire deal will see at least 33 hostages released from Gaza in the coming six weeks in exchange for a pause in fighting, the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, and increased fuel and aid deliveries into the enclave.
Among the Palestinians set for release are 1,167 people who were detained in Gaza during the war, but did not participate in the Oct. 7 attacks.
The Israel Prison Service described all of the 90 freed Monday as “terrorists,” but a spokesperson for the service did not immediately respond to NBC News when asked to clarify what they had been charged with and sentenced for.
Some Palestinians waved Hamas flags ahead of the release.Zain Jaafar / AFP via Getty Images
What happens after the deal’s first phase is uncertain. The agreement’s subsequent stages call for the release of more hostages and prisoners and a permanent end to the war, which began with Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which 1,200 were killed and around 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, more than 46,800 people have been killed in Gaza during the 15-month offensive launched by Israel after the attacks, according to Gaza health officials.
The Israeli military said Sunday that it would be ramping up operations in the West Bank in advance of the release of prisoners and detainees, with troops expected to be stationed on “key routes where additional checkpoints will be established.”
It said that was part of an effort to “thwart terrorist activity and violent riots.”
Some Palestinians have expressed concern about the military activity in the area, which comes at a time of heightened violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank since the war in Gaza began.
