By Ali Sawafta
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – The longest-serving Palestinian inmate in Israeli prisons, revered by activists as the “dean” of their prisoners, is among more than 200 Palestinians who will be deported under the ceasefire in Gaza and prisoner hostages. to exchange.
Nael Barghouti, 67, has spent 44 years in prison by Israel, more than any other Palestinian. Imprisoned in 1978 for killing an Israeli bus driver, he was released in 2011 during a previous exchange, but arrested again three years later and detained since.
Israel said Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis must be permanently deported if released under the Gaza ceasefire deal, and will not be allowed to return to their homes in the West Bank busy.
Barghouti is one of 217 prisoners on an Israeli Justice Ministry list, cited by the Palestinian Prisoners Association, of those who will be sent abroad.
His wife Eman Nafe, herself a former prisoner who spent 10 years in an Israeli prison accused of planning a suicide attack, said she thought he might refuse release if it meant being sent to the foreigner: “I’m sure he will refuse that,” she told Reuters. .
There are 10,400 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, not counting detainees arrested in Gaza during the past 15 months of war, according to the Palestinian Commission for Prisoners’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.
Under the ceasefire agreement, Hamas is to release 33 hostages during the first six-week phase of the truce, including women, children, men over 50, and sick and wounded.
In exchange, Israel will release 1,167 people detained in Gaza during the war and 737 other prisoners from the West Bank, Jerusalem or Gaza.
The first three Israeli hostages were released on Sunday in exchange for 90 Palestinian detainees, although none of the most sensitive Palestinian prisoners were part of that initial group.
Barghouti, who shares a common Palestinian last name with imprisoned political leader Marwan Barghouti, a distant relative, will learn that much has changed during his years in prison, his wife said.
He will discover “that his only brother is also dead, that his brother’s son has been martyred, that many houses have been destroyed and that many family members are detained,” she explained.