A short history of Palestinian prisoner exchanges, with Jon Elmer

You are watching and listening to the electronic inifatada. I am John Elmer. This is the resistance report for day 741 of Israel's genocide. It is day 7 of the third ceasefire and I am reporting this on the 16th of October. I've been starting these segments for the past few months with maps showing um the migration, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza City. Um, I want to just show you a picture uh that's not a map. Um, this is the reversal of those maps that I have been showing you. Um, I hated showing those maps. Um, they're awful maps. um that in some ways um I think a a little bit normalized that uh driving people out of their homes was somehow for Israel um a moral that they they thought it was a legal and a moral cover for the genocide that they were committing rather than an accelerator of that genocide. Um, but this is people crossing back uh to Gaza City along Arashid, the coastal road. And this is the second time we've seen this happen in this war. Um, and I just thought I would put a human face on some of those maps that we usually uh start out with. Um, on Friday at noon local time in Palestine, the ceasefire went into effect. Um immediately the government stepped forward. Um civil defense who has always been there, the municipality um all all of the functioning of the state all stepped forward immediately um after the ceasefire. Most were there uh through the entire genocide. Um and Israel failed to achieve its goals, its goal of genocide. Um it certainly accomplished many parts of that. Um much of that if not all of it will be rebuilt by Palestinians. It's already being be being rebuilt. It has been rebuilt during the war uh itself. The Casam Brigades were not defeated. The government was not defeated. um the United Nations um reliefs works agencies for Palestinian Affairs, the UNRA um sort of the backbone of the state system um was not defeated. Um and Israel's failure to achieve these military goals were well known within Israel. Their military correspondents and security analysts were all very clear on the fact that the goals were not achieved and that Netanyahu was trying to spin them uh as achievements. Um there's talk within Israel about uh what going back to war will look like. The defense minister met um with the chief of staff to plan for the return to war. But Trump told CNN yesterday, "If Israel were capable of crushing Hamas, it would have done so already, which I think is a pretty obvious statement. Um but it's something that we need to keep our eyes peeled for." What we're looking at here on the screen is pictures from Kununis from the release um of the captives um Palestinian prisoners that were released um many of them released from uh that were bargaining chips that were taken to uh prison camps for no reason other than that that they were in shelters or hospitals at the time the Israeli military raided it. And if you're not seeing the images on the screen and you're listening to this program, we're looking at uh buses arriving to uh floods of people. Some people on the ground that day said that it was the largest gathering of people that they can remember uh in southern Gaza and it was a moment of joy of the release of these captives. Of course, the BBC uh reported and others reported as well that um there was no celebrations allowed particularly in the West Bank where there was similar buses and crowds uh in the West Bank uh as well. Casam released a statement about this. They said, "What has been reached in terms of an agreement is the fruit of the steadfastness of our people and the resilience of its fighters, and we announce our commitment to the agreement reached and the associated timelines, provided that the occupation adheres to it." The resistance has always been keen to stop the war of genocide and has sought to do so since the first months. But the enemy thwarted all efforts due to its narrow calculations and to satisfy its instinct of mon monstrous brutality and revenge of its Nazi government. The enemy failed to recover its prisoners through military pressure despite its intelligence superiority and excess force it possesses. And here it is submitting and recovering its prisoners through an exchange deal as the resistance had promised from the beginning. The Nazi occupation could not have recovered most of its prisoners alive. Sorry, the Nazi occupation could alive many months ago as we all know. uh but it continued to stall and act arrogantly, preferring that its army kill dozens of them as a result of its failed military pressure policy. To our free prisoners, Gaza and its resistance have offered the most precious things they possess and have strived to the utmost of their ability to break your chains. And we pledge that your cause will remain at the top of our national priorities until all of you achieve your freedom. So uh very straightforward messages from Kasam to the resistance. Similar ones uh I'll show you from SL Kuds coming up. But this exchange, this is the third prisoner exchange of this war. It saw 250 life sentences uh prisoners with life sentences exchanged um for the 20 living uh PS all soldiers that were returned from Gaza uh immediately pretty much immediately after the ceasefire was uh implemented. They didn't wait the 72 hours that they had. Um 250 life sentences out of 303 prisoners uh with life sentences. Israel put a veto on many of the key leadership uh officials that uh people had hoped would be released. Marwin Barguti, Ahmed Sadat, uh principally the leaders of uh Fata and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Marwin Barguti uh always sort of touted as um a reasonable uh leader uh should there be ever free and fair elections in Palestine. The prisoners media office confirmed that 3,985 Palestinian prisoners were freed in the exchanges of the flood of the free. Um the it's included 503 prisoners serving life sentences representing 87% of all life sentences of prisoners held in occupation prisons. The deal secured the freedom of 13 pre-Oslo prisoners. So from the 1980s, um 41 that were rearrested after the 2011 Wafa Aar exchange, that's the Gilad Shalit exchange. We'll talk about that in a moment. Uh and 2718 Gaza prisoners were also freed. 114 women, 297 children, um and 33 others who were expecting to be sentenced to life sentences uh were released. So significant releases we're seeing here the the prisoners in the buses. This is a scene that we have seen uh at each of the releases and each of the releases going back through history. Um these are the ones from uh yesterday from active stills. This is a Doha Albbaz uh photograph for active stills. Hamas said, "The flood of the free is a historic national achievement that embodied the unity of our people and confirmed that their resistance and adherence to the land and national rights is the way to liberate the land, achieve return, and build the independent Palestinian state. Today's joy and liberation of our heroic prisoners in the flood of the free is an important station in a continuous path until the comprehensive liberation of our land is achieved." So direct statements uh by uh Kasam and the Hamas leadership. And take a look at Sar Aluds who had similar uh statements. They released this poster. Congratulations on your freedom. We fulfilled the promise. This is a poster from Sarah Al- Kuds. Um the uh a commander in Sarah Alud said, "We handed over a number of Zionist prisoners this morning." That was on the first day in implementation of the ceasefire understandings. We are committed to the ceasefire understandings as long as the occupation adheres to them. The steadfastness and resilience of our people led to the achievement of freeing our prisoners and stopping the war. Um also to note from Islamic jihad u deputy secretary general Dr. Muhammad al-Hindi about disarmament told alazer that the resistance factions did not agree to disarmament. We do not accept the threat of disarming by force. um and Palestinian Islamic Jihad Secretary General Zad Nala who himself was freed in a prisoner exchange as we'll talk about in a moment. Uh he said what was achieved today the liberation of a large number of prisoners belonging to the resistance and the Palestinian people would not have been possible without the men of the resistance, the valor of the fighters in the field and the unity of the Palestinian people behind the resistance. Yes, we had hoped that the results would have been better, more people. Um, but our people are not unaware of the balance of power and the many variables and factors that surround our people in Gaza in particular. The banners of the resistance remained high and unbroken. The resistance remained in the field and our people remained proud, dignified, and committed to their resistance. the goal of liberating the rest of our brave prisoners will not fall from the priorities of the resistance. So again, Sri Kuds and Casam uh the two leading movements uh of the joint operations room uh in unison on that and all of the other factions also uh chimed in on that as well. Um, so let's take a look at some of the handovers because we um the handover ceremonies that we saw um in the second prisoner exchange, those were not allowed this time. Uh, Israel vetoed those. They didn't uh like seeing uh Casam fighters organized. They didn't like that their prisoners uh said that they were treated well. uh and they didn't like to see all of the symbolism that uh Kasam put into those and Sariah and the other factions put into those handovers. Um the ratio of handovers uh is 15 Palestinian bodies for each uh Israeli body. So far, nine have been returned. There are 19 remaining. Assam said about that that the resistance has adhered to what was agreed upon and handed over all the living prisoners it had and the bodies it can access. As for the remaining bodies, they require great efforts and special equipment to search and retrieve them and we are making great efforts to close this file. Of course, it's very difficult to find um the prisoners that Israel killed um through their air strikes, through the destruction, as you can see on this picture of the Red Cross convoy taking the um taking the bodies uh that were that were known to be uh killed and Hamas and Kasam had buried those bodies and returned them. Um but you can see all around is just total destruction. And so these 19 Israelis that are you're going to hear about in the news a lot in the coming weeks, um just remember that there's 10,000 Palestinians under the rubble as well, um that cannot be found. And the prisoners that were killed by Israeli fire um were killed in buildings that dropped on top of them. They were killed in tunnels that were bombed um and had buildings dropped on top of those tunnels. It's a very difficult uh process to get them out. We can see in this next slide, the Casam Shadow Unit was out again in the streets for these uh handovers. You can see the patch uh on the sleeve of that uh shadow unit fighter there. Um we can keep looking at these shadow unit pictures. There's a bunch from this handover that you can see. We saw the shadow unit in uh really in its most uh public form during the January handovers. Um the shadow unit has been known about since 2006 since the Gilad Shalit capture when the shadow unit was uh stood up by Muhammad Sinoir um and Muhammad Alif to look after the prisoners and that's their primary job uh and they executed that job flawlessly. No prisoners were found despite the $5 million offered by Netanyahu. Nobody in Gaza turned over the locations of prisoners. Um so the shadow unit um is h has a moment uh to be acknowledged here. And if we look at this next poster here, Kasam has done that. This poster released by Kasam the other day says the shadow units unknown fighters with their efforts. The promise was fulfilled. The promise is of course the promise to return the prisoners. Kasam said in the statement, "A deserved salute to the unknown soldiers of the shadow unit who maintained the enemy captives over two years of alax of flood under extremely complex conditions and exerted their efforts and blood for this until the resistance's promise of freedom for our prisoners was fulfilled. The shadow unit um has been known in in Gaza for uh most of the last decade and a half, although their uh logo was released in 2016 for the first time, acknowledged after the 2014 war when two more Israeli soldiers um were taken into u Kasam uh captivity. If we take a look at these, this was from the second exchange. People remember this. This is the shadow unit returning uh Israelis in uh captured vehicles from October 7th that were taken from an Israeli military base. Um and these kind of symbolisms that were seen in Israel because in Israel, they don't watch Gaza, but they did watch the handover of Israeli captives. And so all of Israel was watching this and they immediately uh noticed these symbolisms like that truck was taken from an an Israeli military base. That's an Israeli military truck. Um, they were the shadow unit soldiers themselves were carrying captured uh Israeli weapons, tabour rifles that were captured from Israelis on October the 7th. Um, so this is from the second exchange. There's a couple more shots um of the uh shadow unit during that exchange that you can see. And Terka Zoom, who you saw um in Norah's report uh talked about these. This is in the second exchange in January of uh 2025. Um that the all the Alazer reporters were waiting, everyone was waiting for the uh for the captives to arrive and Terum said that the cars emerged out of nowhere. Um, so these guys are uh able to execute these operations uh under the strictest eye uh and still be able to um effectively um protect the prisoners uh lives. Uh take care of them. They eat what we eat is their motto. Um and they're very good at what they do. the captives. Um uh the entire Israeli and American and British um intelligence and surveillance forces were trying all the entire time round the clock to find these captives and they were unable to do that. Um and the job of these shadow unit soldiers they take very seriously because ultimately as we saw in those early pictures what the shadow unit uh protecting the PS does is exchange them for Palestinians who would otherwise return to Palestine in coffins. That is the goal of life sentences that they never return. Um and so these shadow unit um soldiers are effectively bringing people back from the dead with these operations and the capture soldiers and then the taking care of them in a small place that has the most surveiled piece of territory on earth unable to find them and that was the case with Galad Shalit in 2006 as well. Um, Israeli state TV in the second exchange uh commented, "How many Hamas activists were tempted by the Israeli offer of $5 million for information on any prisoner during the war?" The answer is zero. A complete zero. You don't need extensive experience in Hamas affairs to understand that they will not sell their prisoners for money. Um, so this kind of uh this is the kind of tone and tenor of the uh second exchange that made Israelis block this from happening this time. So we didn't see those uh exchanges. U this is the logo on uh the shoulder of one of the uh one of the shadow unit soldiers when he's getting the command uh from the senior leadership to release the captives. And there's one more that shows the the logo that was released in 2016 that you see there on the screen. Uh it for people who can't see it's a fighter. Um uh and it says shadow unit underneath them. Those are the same uh logos that we saw on the armbands of the soldiers. Um but let's talk a little bit now about the history of these uh operations to capture Israeli soldiers. Um, the most famous one, uh, recent famous one was in June 2006. And we have a mural here to show you from Jabalia that says, uh, that shows the captured Israeli tank gunner, Gilad Shaled, who was captured at Karam Shalom, uh, on the other side of the boundary between, uh, Rafa and, uh, southern Israel. uh and he was captured in a crossber raid, the first Casam crossber raid uh in June 2006. And I'm going to read you a little bit from the news report, a wire story from the time um that captures the operation at Caram Shalom. Um the attackers surprised Israeli forces when they appeared at first light through a tunnel uh in an open inop ground 300 m inside Israel. The fighters went down through the tunnel, came up behind the Israeli military position and attacked from the back. Um, they split into three groups launching simultaneous attacks on three Israeli defensive positions. I mean that they say it's defensive positions, but they're obviously offensive positions uh perched on the border. Um, they blew the tanks back doors open with uh RPG fire and toss grenades inside. Um, of the four tank crewmen, two of the tank crew died and one was severely wounded. Um, when the Israeli soldiers went to that tank, they found the two dead soldiers and one uh severely wounded and knew that another had been taken captive. Um, they immediately crossed the border into Gaza and launched a war to try to get uh Gilad Shalit, the tank gunner, back. There you see him uh in that mural. And the the point of that mural that you see on the screen where we see Shali on the left uh as a 19-year-old soldier um on the further to the right you see on his name plate it says 2036. Um and it says Zionist we will not get bored. Essentially we are patient. Um the prisoner file is so important that they will hold a prisoner for 30 years if you don't meet the price uh that the Palestinians put up for uh the fighters. And also it's worth noting that I'm just covering the Palestinian uh prisoner releases. But a few weeks after the Shalit operation that was carried out by the popular resistance committees and the Cassam brigades uh Hezbollah in uh the north executed a crossber raid and captured Israeli soldiers um like I said a few weeks later and that sparked the July war in 2006. Um you can see in the next slide of again similar pictures. This is from the electronic inifatada from 2011. Um this is the prisoner release um that came about from the Shalik capture. The the same similar to the way this one worked at the beginning uh when uh Shalit was captured the Palestinians offered a 1000 to1 exchange that the Israelis refused right away. he could have gone home. Uh but the Israelis refused. Ultimately, uh 5 years later, they agreed to uh 1,027 prisoners being released for the one Israeli soldier, including 208 life sentences that were released um after Shalit was handed over by Kasam's top commanders at the time, Ahmed Jabari and Ryad Alatar. their two most senior commanders um were there for the actual handoff. Um and you can see in this next slide um the key figure that was released in that exchange was of course Yaha Sinoir uh who had been the leader in prison um for the two and a half decades uh before his release. Um and when he come out he came out what the first thing he said was they thought prison was our graveyard but it was our academy and Yahinar was killed one year ago today in Rafa in Talis Sultan fighting on the front lines. Um and when he came out he promised to the uh to those left behind and it was one of the first things he said on stage. Here you see him being kissed by Ismael Haneia who was himself assassinated in Iran this year last year um being greeted. But as soon as Sinoir came out, he promised those left behind um that he would free them. Um and there's a couple more pictures of Yaha Sinoir. But Sinir went right. That's Sinir with Ismile Haney and Mahmud Azahar who's the founding member of the Palip Bureau of the Hamas movement. Um, so these are from 2011. Um, and you can see he came out to a hero's welcome similar to the way that the uh that we just saw a couple of days ago happened for the Palestinians. Um, so that promise um by Sinir was that he would join Casam when he got out of prison. He was the leader of Hamas and he was the leader of the prisoners in prison. um and when he came out that he immediately took the prisoner's file before working his way up and ultimately becoming the head of Hamas in Gaza in 2017 before that Shalit deal. Um the the most uh the the largest uh Palestinian prisoner exchange happened in 1985 after in 1983 an Israeli um outpost in Lebanon during the first Lebanon war in the early 1980s was overrun by Fata fighters um and three Israeli soldiers were captured. They were handed over to Ahmed Jabriel of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine's General Command, PFLPGC, uh, who squirreled them out of Lebanon, uh, and and handled the negotiations. And for those three Israeli soldiers captured in Lebanon in May of 1985 that you see here from the newspaper, uh, 1150 Palestinian prisoners were released, uh, including 380 prisoners who were serving life sentences. And you can see in this newspaper from the time, the headline is Palestinians joyously welcome released prisoners with scenes that look the same. We couldn't find uh video from that. I'm sure it's all on microfich. Um, so it would require u a longer project than we had time for here. But it's interesting to see that newspaper from Jerusalem. That's uh in Alajger newspaper 24th of May 1985. Now in the Gabriel exchange uh a number of in important figures were released including Shik Ahmed Yasin who was in prison. He was released in 1985. between 1985 and 1988. He founds uh the Hamas movement. Uh he founds the Hamas movement. Also released was Zad Nala who uh took over the lead uh of setting up Sariah al- Kuds in the Gaza Strip under the orders of Fati Shikakei who was the leader at the time uh of Islamic Jihad and Zad Nala is now the general secretary of um Islamic Jihad and we have watched on this program in this section of the program for the past 741 days Sariah al- Kud's fight uh and defend Gaza in those uh in this genocidal war. So there's still a lot of history to be written about who was released this time and how it this uh moment in the battle uh will shape the future of Palestine and that story will be written another day. But um it's worth noting that Muhammad al Dave said on October 7th that we can change the course of history and that was the plan with October 7th to change the course of history. Um that is the resistance report for day 741 of Israel's genocide. I will be in the coming weeks tracking the ceasefire um and all the uh stuff that you're familiar with. I just wanted to bring you this history of prisoner exchanges while it was in the news.