According to the Media Office for Palestinian Prisoners, at least 154 Palestinian prisoners scheduled to be released on Monday as part of the Israeli prisoner exchange deal held in Gaza will be forced to live in exile by the occupation regime.
Those facing deportation fall among a larger group of Palestinians that Israel is releasing — 250 individuals imprisoned in Israeli prisons along with about 1,700 Palestinians taken from the Gaza Strip over the course of a two-year Israeli genocidal campaign, many of whom have been reported to have been “forcibly disappeared,” as the United Nations has said.
Under the Gaza ceasefire agreement, Hamas and various Palestinian factions released 20 Israeli prisoners alive.
There is currently no information available about the destinations of the released Palestinians. However, during a previous prisoner release in January, dozens of detainees were sent to different countries in the region, such as Tunisia, Algeria, and Turkey.
Observers considered that forced exile constitutes a flagrant violation of the citizenship rights of liberated prisoners, and embodies the double standards associated with exchange agreements.
“It is self-evident that this is illegal,” Tamer Qarmout, associate professor of public policy at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera TV.
He added: “It is illegal because these are Palestinian citizens. They have no other nationality. They are outside a small prison, but they are being sent to a bigger prison, away from their community, to new countries where they will face great restrictions. It is inhumane.”
Family members of the Palestinian detainee, Muhammad Omran, expressed their astonishment when they discovered that he was one of those whom Israel chose to forcibly exile.
Raed Omran stated that the family had previously received a call from an Israeli intelligence officer who confirmed that his 43-year-old brother would be released, and inquired about his place of residence after his release.
However, the family was distressed on Monday to discover that Mohamed, who was arrested in December 2022 and sentenced to 13 life sentences, would be deported.
“Today’s news was a shock, but we are still waiting. Maybe we will be able to see him one way or another,” Imran said. “The important thing is that he be released here or abroad.”
Middle East and North Africa region/
