Israel to Release 50 Additional Palestinian Women Prisoners

Israel – Israel has planned to release 50 additional Palestinian women prisoners to a list of those scheduled for release under a swap deal with Hamas if the group frees more Israeli hostages being held in Gaza. 

According to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday. 

“The government has approved the inclusion of 50 female prisoners in the list of prisoners eligible to be released in the event that a release of additional Israeli hostages is carried out,” the office said in a brief statement on X.

Israel’s Haaretz daily reported that activist “Ahed Tamimi is among the prisoners on the Israeli list of Palestinians expected to be released in exchange for the release of hostages held by Hamas in the future,"

Israeli forces arrested Tamimi in 2017 and imprisoned her for eight months before re-arresting her on November 6 this year in the village of Nabi Saleh in the occupied West Bank.

Netanyahu's office announced early Tuesday that Tel Aviv had received the list of expected hostages to be released later in the day as part of the fifth batch of hostages in a swap deal between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas.

Meanwhile, Palestine noted that Israel is still having 60 Palestinian women in prison.

Most of them were detained after October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a cross-border attack on Israel, said the non-governmental organization Palestinian Prisoners Society.

Palestinian Prisoners Society media officer Amal Sarahneh said Israeli soldiers detained 56 Palestinian women and girls in a massive wave of arrests in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem after October 7.

So far, Israel has detained 3,260 Palestinians.

Sarahneh added that Israel had released 33 Palestinian women under a prisoner swap deal with Hamas during the last four days of the humanitarian pause.

Before October 7, the number of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons was around 5,200, including more than 1,000 held administratively without charge or trial.

Tensions have been rising in the occupied West Bank since fighting broke out on October 7 between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Nearly 240 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since October 7 and more than 2,850 wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.