Most of those released were Gaza residents detained by Israel during the two-year war without charges or a trial. Israel’s military said the Gazans were detained during searches for militants.
The number of Palestinians in Israeli prisons has more than doubled since the Gaza war began with the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. It had surpassed 11,000 before the cease-fire took hold this month, according to HaMoked, an Israeli rights group. About 9,000 Palestinians remained in Israeli custody after the swap.
Over the course of the war, Israeli forces detained several thousand men, women and children from Gaza at checkpoints, homes, shelters, hospitals and even at aid distribution points. Israel routinely held them incommunicado for long periods, rights groups and Palestinians say, a practice that U.N. officials have called a form of forced disappearance.
Israel detained thousands more Palestinians in the occupied West Bank during the war, saying it was targeting militants.
Israeli and international rights groups and the United Nations have said that Israel has systematically violated detainees’ rights by holding them without charge, in secrecy and in degrading conditions. More than 75 have died in Israeli custody since the war began, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society.
Gazans Detained During the War
The vast majority of Palestinians released, 1,718, were detained in Gaza during the course of the war.
Israel says all were suspected of involvement with militant activity. They were classified as “unlawful combatants,” which rights groups said stripped them of almost all due process and rights to a fair trial under Israeli law.
Palestinian critics questioned Israel’s motives, noting that many never faced any formal charges in Israeli courts. They have argued that Israel held at least some of the detainees as bargaining chips for the anticipated future exchanges with Hamas for the hostages.
Some were arrested at checkpoints set up by Israeli forces along the routes the military had told Gazans to use to flee combat areas. The Israeli military arrested other detainees during military operations.
Hundreds of medical workers were arrested, many after Israeli troops surrounded and attacked hospitals, according to rights groups.
People Who Died in Detention
As the number of detainees in Israeli custody climbed during the war, so did accusations of abuse. At least 78 detained Palestinians have died during the war, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society. The Israeli military has acknowledged that some of its detainees have died.
An investigation by The New York Times in 2024 found that Palestinian civilians had been held at an army base in demeaning conditions, unable to plead their cases to a judge or to see their lawyers for months. Some legal experts said these conditions violated international law.
Palestinian detainees from Gaza have been stripped, beaten, interrogated and held incommunicado for weeks, according to detainees or their relatives interviewed by The Times.
You can read the rest of the article here in case you cannot access the original.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/world/middleeast/israel-palestinian-prisoners-freed.html
Posted by Naurgul
5 comments
I can understand how people would be happy about all the people being released from administrative detention, but it’s wild to me that people are okay with all these convicted terrorists being released.
Can’t read either version of the article, but the stuff you’ve posted op seems to be framed as if this entire conflict began with the Hamas attack on the music festival. The war wasn’t as hot then, but it wasn’t all sunshine and roses. NYT is garbage.
>It had surpassed 11,000 before the cease-fire took hold this month, according to HaMoked, an Israeli rights group. About 9,000 Palestinians remained in Israeli custody after the swap.
Starved, abused, and tortured by the IOF. The terrorist Ben Gvir even “visits” them and threatens them with death and he even records his visits for the Israeli.
The worst part is that the Israeli believe that this is normal. They are ready to execute the Palestinians.
The wording of this article is sus.
But it’s still important because if you’ve heard what israel defenders keep saying:
“Hamas is bad because there’s innocent women and children held by israel and they’re only asking for the return of criminals and terrorists” is a common angle they use.
Lets skip the part where we ask ourselves why israel needs to wait for hamas to ask them to release innocent women and children, and use them as a moral bludgeon if they don’t.
“7/8ths of the people released were people detained and held without charge.”
That’s important to note BECAUSE people like to try and portray it as only terrorists being released.
The same people who tried to argue that hamas excecuting isis militia because they didn’t go through a trial are the ones arguing that these freed people who also didn’t go through a trial are inherently terrorists.
Even though we keep seeing articles every day like “This man was a hostage in israel and came back to find his whole neighborhood gone, and his family dead” or “This man they released was a journalist who talks about how they kept telling him in captivity that they already killed everyone he knows and loves”
These words, this information needs to be out there. Every bit of plausible deniability and disinformation needs to be examined and proven, whether one way or another.
That’s what hostage taking does. It creates extremely horrific incentives that last long after the event ends.
Before I continue, I am NOT saying Israel is morally right here. There’s no moral justification for imprisoning thousands of innocent people no matter what. In addition to these thousands of Gazans, there’s many more thousands of West Bankers who weren’t included in this deal.
When one side takes another side’s people hostage and demands a large number of people in exchange, it creates an incentive for the other side to have enough “currency” to “pay for” the hostages.
When there’s a pattern of multiple hostage situations where this happens, they have an incentive to be prepared for future exchanges by keeping a number in stockpile. It’s not morally right, but this is an incentive that comes from hostage taking and lopsided exchanges.
What does this mean going forward? It means that Israel is highly likely to ramp up imprisonment of innocent Palestinians. This is the first time Palestinians have captured hundreds of hostages, before it’s always been a single digit number. Additionally, it was shown that West Bank prisoners aren’t worth very much in an exchange with Gazan parties, it requires Gazans to “pay for” hostages taken into Gaza.
And on top of all that? Corpse exchanges. Israel has to supply 15 dead Palestinians for every dead hostage. What behavior does this encourage? How does one acquire hundreds or thousands of corpses?
This is why hostage taking is illegal. Sure there’s the whole don’t abuse civilians part of it, but it’s mainly because of the horrible incentives it creates for both sides. The Palestinians feel they have no choice but to take hostages because it’s the only way to free Palestinian prisoners, and the Israelis feel that they need enough prisoners to pay for hostages in the next exchange. Human beings are just money to change hands in this escalating flesh trade
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