Bittersweet freedom for Palestinians returning home under ceasefire deal

When Dania Hanatsheh was released from an Israeli jail this week and dropped off by bus into a sea of jubilant Palestinians in Ramallah, it was an uncomfortable deja vu.

After nearly five months of detention, it was the second time the 22-year-old woman had been freed as part of a deal between Israel and Hamas to pause the war in Gaza.

Hanatsheh’s elation at being free again is tinged with sadness about the devastation in Gaza, she said, as well as uncertainty about whether she could be detained in the future — a common feeling in her community.

“Palestinian families are prepared to be arrested at any moment,” said Hanatsheh, one of 90 women and teenagers released by Israel during the first phase of the ceasefire deal. “You feel helpless like you can’t do anything to protect yourself.”

Nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners are to be released as part of a deal to halt the fighting for six weeks, free 33 hostages from Gaza, and increase fuel and aid deliveries to the territory.

Hanatsheh was first arrested in November 2023, just weeks into Israel's brutal invasion triggered by Hamas' cross-border attack. She was freed days later during a weeklong ceasefire in which hundreds of Palestinians were released in exchange for nearly half of the roughly 250 hostages Hamas and others dragged into Gaza.

She was detained again in August, when Israeli troops burst through her door, using an explosive, she said.

On neither occasion was she told why she’d been arrested, she said. A list maintained by Israel's justice ministry says Hanatsheh was detained for “supporting terror,” although she was never charged or given a trial and doesn't belong to any militant group.

Scars on generations of families

Her story resonates across Palestinian society, where nearly every family — in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem — has a relative who has spent time in an Israeli jail. This has left scars on generations of families, leaving fewer breadwinners and forcing children to grow up without one or both parents for long stretches.

Since the start of the war 15 months ago, the number of Palestinians in Israeli jails has doubled to more than 10,000, a figure that includes detainees from Gaza, and several thousand arrested in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, according to Hamoked, an Israeli legal group.

Many prisoners are never told why they were detained. Israel’s “administrative detention” policy allows it to jail people — as it did with Hanatsheh — based on secret evidence, without publicly charging them or ever holding a trial. Only intelligence officers or judges know the charges, said Amjad Abu Asab, head of the Detainees’ Parents Committee in Jerusalem.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, the Palestinian prisoners released by Israel cannot be later rearrested on the same charges, or returned to jail to finish serving time for past "offences". Prisoners are not required to sign any document upon their release.

The conditions for Palestinian prisoners deteriorated greatly after Israel's genocidal war in Gaza began. The country’s then-national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, boasted last year that prisons will no longer be “summer camps” under his watch.

Several of the prisoners released this week said they lacked adequate food and medical care and that they were forced to sleep in cramped cells.

'Indescribable joy'

During the ceasefire's first phase, Israel and Hamas and mediators from Qatar, the US and Egypt will try to agree upon a second phase, in which all remaining hostages in Gaza would be released in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a “sustainable calm.”

Negotiations on the second phase begin on the sixteenth day of the ceasefire.

Amal Shujaeiah said she spent more than seven months in prison, accused by Israel of partaking in pro-Palestinian events at her university and hosting a podcast that talked about the war in Gaza.

Back home, the 21-year-old beamed as she embraced friends and relatives.

“Today I am among my family and loved ones, indescribable joy ... a moment of freedom that makes you forget the sorrow.”