Released Palestinians return home as West Bank violence picks up

The most prominent Palestinian released is Israa Jaabis, convicted of detonating a gas cylinder in her car at a checkpoint in 2015.

Israa Jaabis is welcomed by her family in East Jerusalem. Picture: Getty Images

Prison authorities in Israel released 39 Palestinian detainees early on Sunday after Hamas freed 13 hostages in the second exchange of a deal by Israel to temporarily pause military operations in the Gaza Strip.

The exchange followed an ­initial swap on Friday (Saturday AEDT) when Hamas released 13 Israelis, all women and children, while Israel freed 39 Palestinian women and children.

The other part of the deal rolled into action with trucks carrying medical supplies, food and water entered northern Gaza, as a pause in fighting allows aid to enter the besieged coastal territory.

On the disputed West Bank, ­Israeli troops killed six Palestinians on Saturday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said. A 25-year-old doctor was killed early in the morning outside his home in ­Qabatiya, near Jenin, a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups in the north of the territory, the ministry said. Another Palestinian was killed in el-Bireh, near Ramallah.

Four people were also killed by Israeli army fire in Jenin, during an incursion by a large number of armoured vehicles into the town, which was recently the scene of the deadliest Israeli raid in the West Bank in almost 20 years.

Witnesses said on Saturday that the Israeli army was surrounding Jenin’s public hospital and the Ibn Sina clinic, and that soldiers were searching ambulances. They also reported heavy fighting with automatic weapons.

The West Bank has seen a rise in violence since the October 7 cross-border attack on Israel by Hamas, in which militants from the Gaza Strip killed 1200 people, most of them ­civilians. Israel has since responded with a bombing and land campaign in Gaza, killing nearly 15,000 ­people, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas government.

The agreement by Israel to pause military operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip is supposed to last four days and allow the release of 50 Israelis and 150 Palestinians. The freed Palestinian prisoners are all women and people under the age of 19, while the hostages released by Hamas are all women and children.

Celebrations in East Jerusalem welcoming the released Palestinian prisoners were muted, amid heavy Israeli police presence.

The most prominent Palestinian released was Israa Jaabis, 37, who was convicted of detonating a gas cylinder in her car at a checkpoint in 2015, wounding a police officer. She was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Armed Israeli security forces stood by her house as she returned. Jaabis’s photo, showing her withered fingers and partially burnt face, is regularly used in demonstrations to illustrate the suffering of Palestinian prisoners.

“I’m ashamed to talk about ­rejoicing when the whole of Palestine is wounded”, Jaabis told journalists in her living room, alongside her 13-year-old son.

“They must release everyone.”

In the West Bank, crowds celebrated and chanted slogans praising Hamas for its role in the agreement. The Islamist movement controls parts of the West Bank, rivalling Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas.

The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs on Saturday said 61 trucks carrying medical supplies, food and water had delivered their payloads in northern Gaza, as a pause in fighting allows aid to enter the besieged coastal territory. Another 200 trucks had been dispatched to the Gaza Strip from Nitzana, Israel, the UN said, with 187 of them having made it past the border by early evening local time.

Eleven ambulances, three coaches and a flatbed were delivered to al-Shifa Hospital, which had seen heavy fighting in recent days, “to assist with evacuations”.

“The longer the pause lasts, the more aid humanitarian agencies will be able to send in and across Gaza,” the UN office said, thanking the Palestinian and Egyptian Red Crescent groups. The previous day, when a temporary truce between Israel and Hamas began in order to allow the hostage and prisoner exchange, a total of 137 trucks had delivered aid in Gaza.

AFP