2023-11-26 22:46:57
For the third consecutive night, the return of prisoners from Israeli prisons is celebrated in the West Bank, with fireworks, sweets and many people in the streets, also with a profusion of green Hamas flags and headbands, especially in the first two exchanges. Yesterday, however, some emblems of Al Fatah, the rival party of Hamas, led by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, were also visible.
In al-Manara Square in Ramallah, the arrival of the convoy with the 39 former Palestinian prisoners that Israel released yesterday as part of the agreement with Hamas, which, in turn, has released 14 Israelis and three foreigners, was expected.
The Palestinian prisoners are dozens of women and minors who, for the most part, were imprisoned for crimes related to terrorism, but not necessarily associated with Hamas. The concept of “terrorism” in Israel is broad, so that among those released are minors who threw stones at Israeli troops, women who brandished sharp objects, one who tried to blow herself up with butane gas and ended up injuring Israelis and seriously injuring herself. herself, and others who it is not always known why have been arrested under “administrative detention”, a disputed Israeli criminal figure that allows detention indefinitely without charge or trial.
On Saturday, the Israeli Government ordered the Police to suspend celebrations for the release of prisoners amid pro-Hamas chants and flags. At one point, Israeli security forces fired tear gas canisters into the crowd, AP reported. “The army is trying to take this moment away from us, but they can’t,” Mays Foqaha said while hugging her friend Nour. al Taher, from Nablus, 18 years old, recently released. Al Taher was arrested during a protest last September at the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. “This is our day of victory,” Foqaha noted.
In Israel, analysts say Hamas used cities and towns across the West Bank to stage victory rallies, with green Islamist flags flying, while the Palestinian National Authority refrained from intervening.
In the early hours of Saturday, while Israel and Ramallah were celebrating the return of their people, members of Hamas, which de facto governs Gaza, but not the West Bank, executed two Palestinians in Tulkarem (West Bank), on suspicion that they had helped the Israeli security service Shin Bet to locate and kill three Hamas members, according to Palestinian officials, international media and Palestinian social networks. The two deceased had been arrested a few days ago and apparently executed after the agreement reached between Hamas and Israel began to be implemented. A crowd then kicked the bloodied corpses and dragged them through alleys before attempting to tie them to an electrical pylon.
The scenes, widely shared on social media, were reminiscent of the chaos in the occupied West Bank during the Palestinian intifadas against Israel in 1987 and 2000, each of which lasted several years. During these periods of intense conflict, there were frequent murders of alleged informants, sometimes with their bodies displayed in public.
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