Who are the Palestinian prisoners that were released on Thursday?

Photographs from Ramallah show hundreds of Palestinians welcoming the return of prisoners in buses.

Zakaria Zubeidi waves a Palestinian flag as he is cheered by people after arriving in Ramallah aboard buses of the Red Cross (Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images

IDF troops were stationed in the West Bank to prevent crowds from organising celebratory parades.

As a bus departed from Ofer Prison full of prisoners, Palestinians began throwing stones at the facility. Twelve people were treated for gunshot wounds and tear gas inhalation as they awaited the release of the detainees.

One of the freed prisoners was Sami Jaradat, the architect behind a 2003 restaurant bombing in Haifa that claimed 21 lives.

Oran Almog was just 10 years old when he lost five members of his family (and his sight) in the attack: his younger brother Tomer, then eight, his father Mushik, cousin Assaf, and grandparents Ze'evik and Ruthie.

On finding out that the terrorist responsible for killing his loved ones and leaving him blind was due to be released, Almog admitted having conflicted feelings.

“At first, I was mostly surprised. Not angry, not disappointed, just left without words,” he wrote in Haaretz. “Then I realised the full significance of this release and that of so many prisoners: the living Israeli hostages – men and women – are on their way home.”

Ultimately, Almog managed to put his personal feelings aside and announced his support of the deal, because it would mean the return of loved ones to so many families – a chance he was never afforded.

“Keeping Jaradat in an Israeli prison would never restore my sight or my murdered family, but his release would bring living people home to their families, and there is no greater joy than that,” he said.

One of the most prominent Palestinian prisoners who was released to the West Bank was Zakaria Zubeidi, who organised many of the deadly attacks against Israelis during the Second Intifada. He led the al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades, an armed group affiliated with Fatah, in Jenin.

In 2021, the 49-year-old, alongside five other prisoners, broke out of maximum-security prison in northern Israel through their cell’s drainage system, cementing Zubeidi as a folk hero among Palestinians. All six were captured days later.

The militant leader said he turned to terrorism after Israeli forces shot his mother at a Jenin refugee camp. His father, brothers and 21-year-old son have all been killed by Israeli forces.

A demonstrator holds up a spoon, reportedly the digging tool used by six Palestinian prisoners who escaped from Israel's Gilboa prison, during a rally in Khan Yunis on September 8, 2021 (Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images

Mohammed Aradeh, 42, one of the fellow inmates who escaped high-security prison with Zubeidi, was also released on Thursday. An activist in Palestinian Islamic Jihad who grew up in Jenin, he was sentenced to life for planting an explosive device and attempting murder.

Other released detainees who were serving life sentences for their crimes include Mohammed Falna from Ramallah, imprisoned for 33 years, and Hamas operative Mohammad Abu Warda from Hebron, jailed 23 years ago for his part in two Jerusalem bus bombings in 1996 that killed 45 people and wounded more than a hundred others.

He joined Hamas at the beginning of the Second Intifada while he was a student following the killing of Yahya Ayyash, the militant group’s leading bomb maker, in 1996 by Israeli forces.

Warda helped to recruit suicide bombers, according to Palestinian authorities, including his cousin, his cousin’s neighbor and a fellow classmate at the Ramallah Teachers College. During the early 2000s, the attacks targeting civilian areas in Israeli cities killed scores of people.

Both Abu Warda and Jaradat were expected to be sent to either the Gaza Strip or Egypt.

Also among the prisoners sent to the West Bank was Jordanian Amar Mardi. A member of Fatah, he was involved in the 2001 killing of 18-year-old Yuri Gushchin near Ramallah.

Another released detainee was Rashid Rashak, who was imprisoned at 23 after his plot to assassinate former national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir was foiled in 2022.

A resident of the Old City of Jerusalem, Rashak was also accused of establishing a network of Hamas supporters who led clashes on the Temple Mount.

Meanwhile, Mohammed Odeh, 52, Wael Qassim, 54, and Wissam Abbasi, 48 were sent to Egypt. The three men, all from the neighborhood of Silwan in east Jerusalem, were sentenced to multiple life sentences in 2002 after being accused of plotting a suicide bombing at a pool hall near Tel Aviv that killed 15 people.

That same year, the trio was found to have planned a bombing at Hebrew University that saw the death of nine people, including five American students.

The Palestinian Prisoners Club said that 30 of the released prisoners were minors. Muhammad Lutfi Ali, a 15-year-old from the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem, was the youngest freed.

The release of the prisoners was initially delayed after hostages Yehoud and Mozes were made to travel through a chaotic mob as they were handed to Red Cross officials in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.

Israel said it would delay freeing the prisoners “until the safe passage of our hostages can be guaranteed in the next releases”.