Israel’s system of imprisoning Palestinians is a “tool of oppression, mass incarceration, and apartheid against the Palestinian people” and must be abolished, prisoner’s rights organization Addameer declared on March 3, 2025.1

Anticipating a meeting of the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention on March 7, Addameer called on them to declare Israel’s military courts illegal and demand the release of all Palestinian prisoners. The move would have refocused attention on the plight of thousands of Palestinian prisoners—so often ignored, but one of the stated motivations for Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack.

Instead, Switzerland, which is responsible for bringing together Geneva Convention signatories when the United Nations requests it, canceled the meeting. It said that “profound differences” had emerged over a draft declaration on the application of the Geneva Convention in the occupied Palestinian Territories (oPT), including East Jerusalem.2

And so, international bodies once again failed to use the levers of international law to protect Palestinian civilians. “We want the international community to take concrete measures and this fell short of expectations,” Palestinian ambassador to Switzerland Ibrahim Khraishi told Reuters, saying his delegation had planned to stay away from the event. “What we want is for the Geneva Conventions to be implemented.”3

This diplomatic collapse happened just days after a seventh group of Palestinians was released from Israeli detention on the night of February 26–27 in exchange for Israelis, dead and alive, who had been held in the Gaza Strip by Hamas and other armed organizations. This was the final group exchanged in the second temporary cessation of violence since October 7, 2023—what was supposed to be the first stage of a three-stage ceasefire agreement.

Many of the released prisoners spoke of torture and abuse, with detainees from the Gaza Strip in particular showing signs of emaciation, scars from burns, and amputated limbs.4 “It was as if we have been dug out of our own graves,” one prisoner told Al Jazeera.

The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits parties to war from applying their own legal systems to peoples whom they have occupied. In addition, Addameer called out Israel for using the courts as a tool of mass political repression, detaining Palestinians for accessing their basic rights—often arbitrarily and without any due process. The revolving door of Israeli detention and the measures the military takes to harass these detainees and their families is a constant threat to their freedom.

Israel released 642 Palestinians on February 26, 2025.5 Seventy-six of them were from Jerusalem; 27 of those were deported outside the Palestinian territories (two to the Gaza Strip and two to Egypt). Eight of them were women, and 46 served life sentences or long prison terms (see Table 1).6

Most of the released prisoners from Jerusalem have been ordered to stay away from al-Aqsa Mosque for six months, depriving them of their right to practice their religion. Several Jerusalemites have also been ordered to stay away from Jerusalem’s main Palestinian centers, like the Old City, its surrounding areas, Salah al-Din Street, and elsewhere.7

The longest serving released prisoner from Jerusalem was Hamza Kalouti, 55, who served 25 years of a life sentence. While in prison, he managed to obtain his master’s degree in a correspondence course from Daawa University College for Islamic Studies in Beirut—before the Israeli Knesset banned Palestinians from studying while in prison.8 Kalouti’s family’s home in Beit Hanina was raided prior to his release by the Israeli military, who warned against any celebratory gatherings or visitation.9

Prisoners released in exchanges are almost always what Israel refers to as “security prisoners,” meaning they have “been convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for committing an offense, or [have been] detained on suspicion of committing an offense, which, by its nature or circumstances, has been defined as a clear security offense, or whose motive for committing it stemmed from nationalist reasons.”10 Although not explicitly articulated, “nationalist reasons” can refer to a range of activities—anything from armed resistance against Israel’s occupation to political activity like planning or attending a protest or organizing to help houseless Palestinians after a home demolition. Israel tries to maintain control over such prisoners, even after they are no longer in detention. Some are placed on house arrest until a court-determined date. Others are “deported” to the West Bank, Gaza Strip, or other Arab countries regardless of whether they have family or previous ties there.

Israel also adopts a strategy of intimidating the prisoners, their families, and their communities. Many prisoners reported brutal beatings by Israeli soldiers just minutes before they were freed; a number were transported immediately to emergency rooms upon their arrival home.11

On the day of release, prisoners’ families were told explicitly—and some forced to sign agreements—that they were prohibited from gathering, waving banners or flags, and setting off fireworks. Since the beginning of the Israel–Hamas ceasefire on January 19, 2025, prisoners’ homes have been raided, searched, and vandalized. Israeli soldiers go house to house, destroy chairs set out for visitors, kick out anyone who isn’t a first-degree relative, and punish expressions of joy with beatings, tear gas, and arrests.12 The orders from the Israel Prison Service were “no public displays of joy.”13

Ashraf Zghayyar’s family home in Kufr ‘Aqab was raided two hours following his release, well-wishers in his home were violently forced out, and his brother arrested. A few days later, soldiers raided the family home again, conducting a field interrogation with Zghayyar and arresting two additional brothers and seven more of his relatives and acquaintances under the pretense that they were celebrating his return and raising banners.14 The Zghayyars and other prisoners’ families also faced harassment in the form of spurious heavy fines for “offenses” such as garbage outside their properties, expired auto licenses, or not wearing their seatbelts—offenses that are trumped up or heavily applied.15

Prisoners’ parents were not spared. Parents of prisoners were called to the Russian Compound Police Station, also known as al-Moskobiyya, in the middle of the night to accompany home their released children. On a separate day, parents were called to the station and detained for hours with no access to phones, bathrooms, or even water while waiting for the release of their children.16 Parental involvement is not required in the release process, but the measure seems to be intended to exploit their emotions, as they wait in anticipation of their children’s release. No matter the humiliation, Israeli authorities know that parents will comply.

Israel criminalizes security prisoners’ relationships, making their relatives’ actions subject to punitive measures, regardless of their criminality. This kind of collective punishment was formalized in a recent law legalizing the deportation of family members of those charged with security offenses.17

In 2011, the Israeli Supreme Court banned Palestinian security prisoners from obtaining higher education while incarcerated. This court decision was viewed as “an act of revenge to pressure Hamas,” which held Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in the Gaza Strip at that time.18 Once they are released, Palestinian prisoners have very limited access to higher education, as officials can deny admission based on security concerns. Since October 2023, suspensions and expulsions of Palestinian students have increased—in some cases, for mere social media posts containing news from Gaza or verses from the Quran. Education abroad is often not an option either, because Israel requires Palestinians who are permanent residents (which is usually the case for those from Jerusalem), to apply for an Israeli travel document (laissez-passer). Such applications can be denied for released prisoners.

While in detention, Palestinian security prisoners report inhumane, unlivable conditions. After release, they require ongoing support to recover from the emotional, physical, and mental toll. During the Dignity Uprising of May 2021, which broke out in protest of demolitions in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, Israeli officials began to prevent activists who were detained from utilizing their health insurance. This decision was not announced by Israel’s National Insurance Institute (which manages the national health insurance system), but health-care clinics simply denied freed detainees who lived in Jerusalem medical care. Investigations by legal aid organizations discovered that Israeli officials had cut all social benefits that are usually guaranteed to every taxpayer.19 Without legislative action, freed prisoners and current prisoners’ family members were thereby stripped of their rightful benefits as a punitive measure.

Jerusalemite prisoners released in the most recent deal are expected to face the same punitive measures, leaving them with no access to social services whatsoever. This misguided approach creates a population with no possibility of physical, mental, social, or economic rehabilitation, further pushing them into the margins of society, especially since they must rely on Israeli institutions, the very entities that oppress them, for social services they need to live a dignified life—or live any life at all.

Moreover, because they are constantly encountering ubiquitous Israeli police and security forces throughout the city, prisoners from Jerusalem face great risk of being rearrested or detained. For example, in 2014, after Hamas carried out an attack on settlers in the West Bank, Israel rearrested about 50 ex-prisoners freed in the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal, as a kind of retaliation. These Palestinians had only spent 32 weeks outside of prison before being sent back to complete their sentences.20 Similarly, dozens of prisoners released in the first exchange of Palestinian prisoners for Israelis held by Hamas in November 2024 were rearrested within days. Some released to Jerusalem in this latest deal could also be picked up again and deported abroad or to the West Bank or Gaza Strip.

Zeina Barbar, 23, the daughter of freed Jerusalemite former prisoner Majd Barbar who spent 21 years in Israeli prisons, was arrested and charged in July 2024 for “incitement of terrorism.” She was released in the latest January swap but is now facing a deportation order, with no indication of her destination. She could be sent to Gaza, or the West Bank, or abroad. The deportation order also does not include any information on how long she must stay away from Jerusalem. Lawyers say it is an open-ended order and could extend for months or years. Two other young Jerusalemites released along with Barbar, Tasneem Odeh and Mohammad Abu Hilwa, have been deported outside Jerusalem elsewhere in the West Bank.21

Such deportations are not mandated by law. Instead, they come directly from the Minister of Interior Affairs, Moshe Arbel, who decided to “exercise his authority” by stripping residency rights from Jerusalemites who “incited terrorism,”22 even though they have already been punished with time in detention or a prison sentence. This is only a drop in the bucket of policies Israel is operating on to spread fear among Palestinians, particularly Jerusalemites, to ultimately eradicate resistance and activism in the city and beyond.

Since October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have arrested approximately 15,700 Palestinians from the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.23 Simultaneously, thousands of Gazans are estimated to have been arbitrarily detained—some released and others remaining in prison camps, their whereabouts unknown. The known number of detainees has ballooned from about 5,250 just before October 7 to approximately 9,500 today, at least 3,405 of them held in administrative detention for indefinite periods without charge or trial, and another 1,555 Palestinians from Gaza held under the “unlawful combatants law.”24 They also include 350 children and 26 women. At least 61 prisoners have died in detention, their bodies still held.25 By comparison, 1,804 prisoners have been released in seven different exchanges since October 7, 2023.26

Israel’s strategy for weathering prisoner exchange deals seems clear: for every freed Palestinian, it locks up countless others. Its prisons will not empty, and the machine of the occupation will not rest.