Israel is set to free another 110 prisoners; nobody knows where they are going

On Thursday, Israel is set to release 110 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for three Israeli hostages: soldier Agam Berger, and civilians Arbel Yehoud and Gadi Mozes.

Unknown are the exact identities of all of the prisoners to be released as part of the agreement, though they will likely be announced by the Israel Prison Service shortly before the exchange. It also remains unclear whether the inmates will remain in the Palestinian territories or face exile abroad.

Among the 110 prisoners to be released are prominent terror convicts Zakaria Zubeidi, Mahmoud Atallah and Ahmed Barghouti, according to multiple media reports. Authorities have yet to give official information on the prisoners to be set free.

Zubeidi, who will return home to the West Bank, organized dozens of attacks during the Second Intifada while heading the al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades in Jenin. He was one of six prisoners who briefly escaped from Gilboa prison in 2021, before being recaptured.

Atallah, who is serving a life sentence for murdering a Palestinian woman suspected of collaborating with Israel, will be released to Nablus. He was indicted last September for repeatedly sexually assaulting female guards at Gilboa Prison.

Barghouti, a senior military official in Fatah, received 13 life sentences for carrying out a series of terror attacks during the Second Intifada that killed 12 Israelis. He will be deported abroad via Egypt.

Of the 110 prisoners to be released Thursday, 33 are serving life terms for deadly attacks, 47 are serving long prison terms, and the remaining 30 are women and minors, according to Kan. Prisoners will be transported to two main reception points, Ofer and Ktzi’ot prisons, before being released home or deported, said a Prison Service spokesperson.

Exile or not

When it comes to the most hardened terror convicts slated for release, experts are divided on whether it is preferable for Israel to allow them to return to the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, or deport them to countries willing to take them in.

The former comes with the benefit of being able to keep a closer eye on them, but runs the risk of allowing veteran terrorists easy access to Israeli targets. Sending them far away somewhat defuses that threat but leaves them largely out of reach of Israel’s security and intelligence services, allowing them to orchestrate attacks from afar, as has occurred in the past.

“Past experience shows us that deportation abroad often makes released prisoners more dangerous,” said Guy Aviad, a Hamas specialist and former IDF history department official, noting the logistical and diplomatic challenges involved in neutralizing threats in foreign territories.

Thursday’s exchange is part of the first phase of the ceasefire and hostage release agreement, under which 50 prisoners are freed for every soldier and 30 for each civilian.

In this 42-day period, 33 Israeli captives held in Gaza are expected to be released in exchange for 1,904 Palestinian security prisoners, including 737 serving life terms. The other 1,167 are Palestinians detained during the IDF’s ground offensive who did not participate in the Hamas-led October 7 massacre.

Last week, Israel released 90 prisoners in return for three civilian hostages on Monday, followed by 200 additional inmates — including 121 serving life sentences for terrorism — in exchange for four female soldiers on Saturday.

Talks have yet to begin on the deal’s second stage, in which Hamas is expected to release young, relatively healthy male hostages, including soldiers, for whom the terrorist organization is likely to demand Israel pay a heavier price.

Hamas has promised the families of prominent terror convicts Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Saadat that they will be released from Israeli prison in the second stage of the deal, the Kan public broadcaster reported on Tuesday, citing an unnamed Palestinian source involved in the negotiations.

Harming Israel from afar

Prisoners with leadership potential or technical expertise in building weapons and explosives are most likely to be deported, regardless of the gravity of their crimes or the length of their sentences, Hamas specialist and former IDF history department official Guy Aviad told The Times of Israel.

Out of the 121 prisoners released Saturday who were serving long sentences for involvement in deadly attacks, 51 were released into the West Bank and Gaza, while the other 70 were sent to Egypt to be deported to third countries.

While officials have stayed mum about what countries might take in the released convicts, Palestinian prisoner advocacy leader Abdullah al-Zaghari told the Associated Press that deportees are being taken in by Algeria, Tunisia and Turkey. Sources have told The Times of Israel that Qatar will also host some of the Palestinian murder convicts released in the deal.

Past data underscores concerns about the potential for recidivism. Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar recently presented findings to the security cabinet indicating that 82 percent of the 1,027 prisoners freed in the 2011 Gilad Shalit deal returned to terrorism.

The figure, however, is disputed. According to Lior Akerman, a former top Shin Bet official and a senior research fellow at Reichman University, the percentage reflects the number of released prisoners who remain in contact with their terror groups and receive stipends or compensation for their time in prison.

In a recent interview with Maariv, Akerman said that only 12% of the released prisoners actually engage in planning and executing terror attacks.

Officials point out that the released terrorists will remain dangerous no matter where they are, if past experience is any guide.

Many of those released to the West Bank and Gaza in the past regained their positions in the ranks of terror organizations, such as slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of the October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel.

But those who were exiled abroad were no less dangerous in plotting terror threats against the Jewish state.

One of the most prominent examples is Saleh al-Arouri, former head of Hamas’s military wing in the West Bank, who was released in 2010 and exiled abroad, and orchestrated numerous attacks against Israelis from his bases in Turkey and Lebanon, including the June 2014 kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers, which led to the 2014 war in Gaza. Israel assassinated him in Beirut in early 2024.

His successor Zaher Jabarin, freed in the Shalit deal and based today in Istanbul, attempted to launch a wave of suicide bombings from the West Bank against Israelis in the summer of 2024. He still manages Hamas’s finance arm from his home in Turkey, funneling millions of dollars to the group for terror operations.

But even those operating from abroad are not immune to Israel’s long arm. While Israel has carried out hits on top terror operatives on foreign soil in the past, such operations are often complicated by diplomatic concerns as well as the complexities of taking action abroad.

For those sent to Algeria, a country which has no relations with Israel, Jerusalem should not face any diplomatic obstacle in assassinating exiled terrorists, Michael Milshtein, a former Israel Defense Forces intelligence officer now at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies in Tel Aviv.

Operating in Tunisia, however, could prove more problematic. Though it also has no ties with Israel, the country still has a recognized Jewish community and Tunis allows visits by Israeli pilgrims.

Carrying out a hit in Turkey would be an even bigger problem. The country has deployed fiery rhetoric against Israel since the start of the war, but still maintains diplomatic ties with Jerusalem, albeit seriously strained ones.

“The consequences of acting on Turkish territory would be very dramatic,” Milshtein assessed.

He surmised that political leaders were pushing for deportation to avoid scenes of public celebration in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which Israel says could embolden Hamas supporters and incite fresh violence.

“From a security point of view, there is no reason at all to prefer deportation over release to the West Bank,” Milshtein said. “There, they are under Israel’s eyes, intelligence services can track them, catch them, and kill them more easily than anywhere else in the Middle East.”

Charlie Summers contributed to this report.