Israel is set to release more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners during the initial 42-day truce under the terms of the deal, starting with at least 90 on Sunday, in exchange for three Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
The Israelis say many of the prisoners are terrorists and murderers. Many Palestinians see the imprisoned activists as freedom fighters against Israeli rule and argue that others were imprisoned by an unfair Israeli military justice system.
Here are several of the most prominent Palestinian prisoners to be released under the truce, according to Israel’s Justice Ministry.
Zakaria Zoumbeidis
For the past two decades, Zakaria Zubeidi, 49, has been a militant, theater director and escaped prisoner whose escape stunned Israelis and Palestinians.
Mr. Zubeidi rose to prominence as a militant leader during the Second Intifada, or uprising, in the early 2000s, in which Palestinian militants carried out deadly attacks against Israelis, including suicide bombings targeting urban streets.
Israel responded by recapturing major Palestinian cities amid street fighting. Some of the fiercest fighting took place in the Palestinian city of Jenin, the hometown of Mr. Zubeidi. He later emerged as a top commander in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, an armed militia loosely affiliated with the secular Fatah party, the dominant Palestinian political faction in the West Bank.
After the rebellion, Mr. Zubeidi worked in a theater inside the Jenin refugee camp. In 2019, Israel arrested him again on charges that he had returned to competitive action.
Two years later, Mr. Zubeidi and five other Palestinian prisoners carried out a jailbreak by going nearly 32 yards through an underground tunnel outside one of Israel’s maximum security prisons. Although they were later recaptured, the security breach shocked Israelis and delighted Palestinians.
An Israeli drone strike killed the son of Mr. Zubeidi, Mohammad, in September. The Israeli military called the son a “major terrorist” and said he had been involved in shootings at Israeli troops.
Wissam Abbasi, Mohammad Odeh and Wael Qassim
Wissam Abbasi, 48, Mohammad Odeh, 52, and Wael Qassim, 54, were jailed in 2002 on charges of carrying out Hamas attacks against Israelis during the Second Intifada. According to Israel’s Ministry of Justice, the three men were sentenced to life in prison for murder and a number of other crimes.
According to contemporary Israeli media, the men were among several convicted of involvement in a Hamas cell in Jerusalem that was responsible for a series of bombings that killed more than 30 Israelis in heavily populated civilian areas.
The attacks included a Hamas bombing at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that killed nine people, including four US citizens, according to Israeli authorities.
Mr. Odeh, who worked as a painter at the university, planted the bomb in a cafeteria and covered it with a newspaper, the New York Times reported at the time, citing Israeli officials. When he left, he remotely detonated the explosives with a cellphone, officials said.
Under the terms of the ceasefire agreement, the men will not be allowed to return to their homes in Jerusalem, according to Israel’s Justice Ministry. They will be required to live in exile, although it is unclear where they will be allowed to go.
Khalida Jarrar
One of the most prominent Palestinian prisoners expected to be released on Sunday is Khalida Jarrar, 62, a leader of the left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Ms. Jarrar, a prominent activist for the rights of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, was elected to the Palestinian Parliament in the 2006 elections.
The United States and the European Union consider the Popular Front a terrorist organization. The group became notorious in the late 1960s for a series of hijackings, as well as other attacks, including the Second Intifada.
Ghassan Jarrar, her husband, said in a telephone interview that Israeli authorities have not allowed him to visit his wife since her arrest in December 2023. He has perceived any news about her condition he could get from infrequent visits by her lawyer. he said.
Ms. Jarrar has spent much of the last decade in and out of Israeli prisons, although he has not been convicted of direct involvement in the Popular Front’s military activities. In 2015 he was sentenced to 15 months for inciting and participating in a banned organization.
In recent years, Israel has mostly held Ms. Jarrar without formal charges. Human rights groups call the practice a serious violation of due process, while Israel says it is sometimes necessary to protect sensitive information.
In 2021, her daughter Suha died while Mrs. Jarrar was being held in an Israeli prison. Israel denied a request to grant her humanitarian permission to attend the funeral.
