One of the bitter pills Israelis must swallow in the freeing of the hostages held by Hamas is having to release terrorists guilty of many serious crimes, from leading terrorist attacks to dispatching suicide bombers and committing murder.
Zakaria Zubeidi headed the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades during the Second Intifada, the Palestinian uprising that began after Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat rejected the two-state solution offered by U.S. President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000. Zubeidi organized dozens of attacks, including one on a Likud political party office in 2002 in Beit Shean that killed six Israelis.
Ahmed Barghouti, a senior military official in the Fatah terrorist organization, was serving 13 life sentences for terror attacks that killed 12 Israelis during the Second Intifada.
Mohammed Abu Warda was serving 48 life sentences for masterminding multiple Hamas terror attacks during the Second Intifada, including a bus bombing in Jerusalem that killed 45 people.
Sami Jaradat, of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was responsible for a 2003 restaurant bombing in Haifa that killed 21 people.
Wael Qassem, Wassam Abbasi, and Mohammed Odeh were members of a Hamas terror cell whose bombings killed 35 people, including attacks at a Hebrew University cafeteria, Rishon LeZion’s Shefayim Club, and a Jerusalem cafe.
Shadi Amouri of Fatah was serving 17 life terms for his role in a 2002 suicide bombing near Megiddo in northern Israel, which killed 17 Israelis, including 13 IDF soldiers, and injured more than 40.
They were among the 183 Palestinians released on Feb. 1 in return for three Israeli hostages: Yarden Bibas, Keith Siegel, and Ofer Kalderon. Of those Palestinians, 111 were detained the day after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on suspicion of terrorism and held without trial. The remaining 72 were already serving long or life sentences in Israeli prisons for deadly attacks committed before the war.
According to a schedule in which Israel must release 50 prisoners for each Israeli soldier hostage freed and 30 prisoners for each civilian hostage, Israel will have to free nearly 2,000 terrorists or alleged terrorists during the cease-fire’s first phase exchanges, in which 33 Israelis—only 25 of them still living, plus eight bodies—will be returned.
Similarly, lopsided exchanges took place earlier, since the cease-fire began on Jan. 19.
Israel has for years sought the return of those taken hostage and of the bodies of those killed and has paid high prices to do so.
In 2011, Israel traded 1,027 Palestinians to free a single Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who had been kidnapped on Israeli soil five years previously.
One of those freed, Yahya Sinwar, became the head of Hamas’s military wing and planned the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack.
That day, about 3,000 terrorists killed 1,200 people, primarily Israeli civilians, wounded thousands, and took 250 hostages. Sinwar evaded the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) until Oct. 16, 2024, when he was killed in a Gaza apartment during a routine patrol by Israeli infantry and tanks.
Saturday’s exchange, for the first time, included Gazans detained since the war began, as long as they hadn’t been directly involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.
Israelis are conflicted about letting so many of such people go free.
Orit Mark Etinger lost her father, Michael Mark, in a 2016 terrorist attack. Her younger brother survived that attack but was killed while in Gaza. Two cousins were also victims of terror attacks.
“When I first heard about the decision to release terrorist prisoners in exchange for hostages, I felt deep pain and anguish,” Etinger told Fox News Digital. “Releasing murderers who destroyed entire lives is unbearable. No one can bring my father back. Meanwhile, the terrorist who murdered him may now walk freely on the street.
“One of my father’s murderers had already been released in the Shalit deal and returned to kill. We understand who we’re dealing with, which is why we fear the repercussions of releasing murderers with blood on their hands. But we cannot leave the hostages—innocent people—living in hell in Gaza. They must come home.”
