RAMALLAH: A red keffiyeh scarf around her neck and a beaming smile on her face, Rouba Assi fell into her friends’ arms after being freed from a Zionist prison. "I missed you so much,” said the 23-year-old activist, as the crowd around her hoisted her to their shoulders, chanting "Welcome back! Welcome back!”
Her parents, still in visible disbelief at her release after six months in a Zionist jail, could not take their eyes off her. In the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday night, as every evening since Friday, crowds gathered to welcome home the latest group of Palestinians freed under a prisoner-hostage exchange deal struck between the Zionist entity and Hamas.
And on Tuesday, like every other night, the arrival of the white bus carrying the freed prisoners was greeted with an explosion of joy in the Palestinian territory. "I’m really happy. I feel like I’m in a movie,” said Mohammad, a young man from Hebron, who declined to give his last name. "It’s crazy. The Palestinian prisoners are back in Palestine.”
Victory signs
Like many others, Mohammad had come to follow the bus bringing Palestinian detainees released by the Zionist entity in return for some of the roughly 240 people taken captive by Hamas during its raids on Zionist communities and army bases Oct 7, which left around 1,200 people dead. In response, the Zionist entity launched a relentless air and ground military campaign in Gaza, which killed more than 15,000 people.
But the truce facilitating the prisoner-hostage exchanges has largely silenced the guns on both sides for six days now. It is set to remain in effect until at least Thursday morning and could be extended further.
Mohammad filmed with his phone as a group of smiling young women just freed from prison saluted the crowd with a "V” for victory sign and danced in front of the bus. Some people sported the colors of various Palestinian movements — among them the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Fatah party of president Mahmud Abbas — but the green flag of Hamas was the most popular. "We are Mohammed Deif’s people!” the crowd chanted at one point, referring to the elusive leader of Hamas’s armed wing, one of the alleged masterminds of the Oct 7 attack.
To those in the crowd — albeit smaller than previous nights — forcing the Zionist entity to free 180 Palestinians so far constitutes a major victory, but the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group notes that roughly 3,300 others have been arrested since Oct 7. The majority appear to be held in administrative detention — that is, a form of incarceration without charge or trial that authorities can renew indefinitely.
Unfair justice system
Under international law, the practice of administrative detention is supposed to be used only in exceptional circumstances. But, as Zionist and international human rights groups document, it has become more the norm in the West Bank. Even before Oct 7, smoldering tensions and violence in the West Bank had led to a three-decade high in administrative detentions.
Then, according to the Zionist human rights organization HaMoked, the total number of Palestinians in administrative detention went from 1,319 on Oct 1 to 2,070 on Nov 1 — close to a third of the total Palestinian prisoner population. There are more than 7,000 Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails.
The Zionist entity’s critics contend that even those charged with specific crimes face a skewed, unfair justice system. Palestinians in the West Bank are subject to Israeli military courts, unlike the half-million Jewish settlers who live in their midst. These courts have in some years churned out convictions at a 99 percent rate, a state of affairs that raises questions about the due process afforded to Palestinians.
On a hill overlooking Ofer prison, dozens of people waited for hours to watch the release, some warming themselves near fires. Others in cars and on motorcycles cruised around nearby housing blocks. All the while, the waiting Palestinians and the Zionist soldiers stationed around the prison and along the route kept a wary eye on each other as a Zionist drone whirred overhead. – Agencies