Al Jazeera Net correspondents
Published On 19/10/2025
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Last update: 15:36 (Mecca time)
Gaza- With the completion of the deal to exchange live prisoners between the Palestinian resistance and the Israeli occupation forces following the signing of the ceasefire agreement on October 9, the file of the prisoners whom the occupation decided to deport from the Palestinian territories emerged as one of the files that requires intensive contacts conducted by mediators with Arab and Islamic countries to receive and reside a number of them within their territories.
Last week, the occupation forces released 250 prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment and took a decision to deport 154 of them outside the Palestinian territories.
Media official in the Office of Martyrs and Prisoners of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Nahid Al-Fakhouri, says that the final stage of the deal included the release of 1,718 prisoners who were arrested from inside the Gaza Strip after October 7, 2023, in addition to 250 who received life sentences, including 154 who were deported to the Egyptian capital, Cairo, as the first stop.
“#Gaza You did the impossible and liberated us against the will of the occupier.” The arrival of a number of deported Palestinian prisoners to… #Cairo After their release in the exchange deal between Israel and Hamas #Al Jazeera_Live pic.twitter.com/uW8Yqb94SN
– Al Jazeera Mubasher (@ajmubasher) October 14, 2025
Responsibility of intermediaries
It also included – according to Al-Fakhouri – 8 prisoners from the Wafaa Al-Ahrar deal who were deported to Gaza since 2011. The occupation re-arrested 8 during the war, and recently released them and deported them to the Gaza Strip.
The same spokesman explained to Al Jazeera Net that all the prisoners who were decided to be deported are now inside Egyptian territory until contact is made with a number of countries that are ready to receive them inside their territory. He noted that the task and responsibility of communicating with these countries fell on the mediators who were informed of this by the Palestinian factions.
He stressed that until these days, the picture is not clear regarding the countries expected to receive the deportees, nor the numbers of those who will reside in each one.
In the exchange deal held in January of this year, the Israeli occupation deported 229 prisoners from their places of residence, out of a total of 1,777 prisoners included in the deal at that time.
Türkiye received 49 of them, while 15 others arrived to reside in Malaysia, and 20 prisoners from residents of the occupied West Bank governorates arrived in Gaza, while 136 others remained inside Egyptian territory.
protection
Al Jazeera Net learned from sources familiar with the prisoners’ file that a number of countries have reservations about receiving and placing deported Palestinian prisoners within their territories, and while some countries had previously prepared to receive a number of them, they backed away from that without giving reasons.
Following the recent exchange, approximately 10,500 prisoners remain inside the occupation prisons, including more than 1,450 who have been sentenced to prison for various years, including about 15 who have been sentenced or are awaiting life imprisonment, according to Hassan Abd Rabbo, spokesman for the Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs Authority.
Abd Rabbo explained, in an interview with Al Jazeera Net, that the number of child prisoners under the age of 18 in the occupation prisons exceeds 400, while the number of female prisoners is 53, and about 3,500 prisoners are still administratively detained without trials or indictments.
The Palestinian Center for Missing and Forcibly Disappeared: The tragedy of missing and forcibly disappeared persons continues in Gaza after two years of aggression. Thousands of Palestinian families are still searching for their loved ones among the rubble, cemeteries and prisons without any reliable information. Our estimates indicate between 8,000 and 9,000 cases of loss or forced disappearance with… pic.twitter.com/FEXLZFXBsZ
— Saleh Al Jaafrawi | Saleh Aljafarawi (@S_Aljafarawi) October 7, 2025
Forced disappearance
And he confirms Abdul Rabbo There are cases of deliberate forced disappearance of a large number of prisoners in the Gaza Strip, and a blackout by the Israeli occupation regarding their numbers and places of detention.
He quotes statistics issued by Israeli anti-torture institutions that the occupation was holding 2,700 prisoners from Gaza, including 660 of them in Israeli army camps, meaning they were not under the management of the Prison Service, in addition to 144 missing detainees from the Gaza Strip, “which indicates the existence of a policy of forced disappearance, accompanied by killing, execution, and field liquidations.”
According to the spokesman for the Prisoners’ Affairs Authority, the occupation was holding the bodies of 1,500 Palestinian martyrs from Gaza in large refrigerators inside an army camp.
It is noteworthy that 77 prisoners were martyred inside the occupation prisons after the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, including 46 prisoners from the Gaza Strip, and the occupation is still holding their bodies.