Families of many of the Palestinian prisoners being released by Israel under an exchange deal say their long-awaited freedom is bittersweet after they learned their loved ones would be deported to third countries.
At least 154 Palestinian prisoners being freed on Monday as part of the swap for Israeli captives held in Gaza will be forced into exile by Israel, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office said.
Those to be deported are among a larger group of Palestinians being released by Israel – 250 people held in Israeli prisons along with about 1,700 Palestinians seized from the Gaza Strip during two years of Israel’s war, many of whom were “forcibly disappeared”, according to the United Nations. For its part, Hamas and other Palestinian groups released 20 Israeli captives under a Gaza ceasefire agreement.
There are no details yet about where the freed Palestinians will be sent, but in a previous prisoner release in January, dozens of detainees were deported to countries in the region, including Tunisia, Algeria and Turkiye.
Observers said the forced exile illegally breaches the citizenship rights of the released prisoners and is a demonstration of the double standards surrounding the exchange deals.
“It goes without saying it’s illegal,” Tamer Qarmout, associate professor in public policy at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera.
“It is illegal because these are citizens of Palestine. They have no other citizenships. They’re out of a small prison, but they’re sent to a bigger prison, away from their society, to new countries in which they will face major restrictions. It’s inhumane.”
Families shocked by deportations
Speaking to Al Jazeera in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, relatives of Palestinian prisoner Muhammad Imran said they were shocked to learn he was among those Israel had decided to force into exile.
Raed Imran said the family had previously received a call from an Israeli intelligence officer, confirming that his brother, 43, would be released home and asking where he would stay on his release.
But on Monday, the family was dismayed to learn that Muhammad, who was arrested in December 2022 and sentenced to 13 life terms, would be deported.
“Today’s news was a shock, but we are still waiting. Maybe we’ll get to see him somehow,” Imran said. “What matters is that he is released, here or abroad.”
The exile means his family might be unable to travel overseas to meet him due to Israel’s control of the borders.
“We might be looking at families who will be seeing their loved ones deported and exiled out of Palestine but have no way of seeing them,” said Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, who has reported extensively from the occupied West Bank.
‘A win-win for Israel’
According to Qarmout, the deportations are intended to deprive Hamas and other Palestinian groups of being able to claim any symbolic win from the exchange and to remove the deported prisoners from any involvement in political or other activities.
“Exile means the end of their political future,” he said. “In the countries they go to, they will face extreme constraints, so they will not be able to be active in any front related to the conflict.”
He said the deportations amounted to forcible displacement of the released prisoners and collective punishment for their families, who would either be separated from their exiled loved ones or forced to leave their homeland if they were permitted by Israel to travel to join them.
“It’s a win-win for Israel,” he said, contrasting their experiences to those of the released Israeli captives, who will be able to resume their lives in Israel.
“It’s more double standards and hypocrisy,” he said.
