GAZA CITY — Nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners were released from Israeli detention on Monday under the first phase of a ceasefire agreement aimed at ending the war in Gaza.
The Hamas-run Prisoners’ Media Office said buses carrying freed detainees from Ofer Prison, west of Ramallah, arrived in the West Bank town of Beitunia.
According to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, 96 prisoners serving lengthy jail terms arrived aboard two International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) buses.
The office also said 154 released prisoners were deported to Egypt, while more than 1,700 others freed from the Negev Prison in southern Israel were transported to the Gaza Strip.
“Under the current deal, 250 prisoners serving life sentences and long terms, as well as 1,718 detainees arrested from Gaza after October 7, 2023, were released,” the Prisoners’ Media Office said in a statement.
Israel’s Prison Service confirmed the releases, saying 1,968 Palestinian prisoners were freed under the Gaza ceasefire agreement.
The first group of released detainees arrived at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis for medical examinations, where thousands of Palestinians gathered to welcome them.
The mass release followed Hamas’ handover of 20 living Israeli hostages as part of the same deal.
The first phase of the ceasefire — brokered under U.S. President Donald Trump’s mediation — took effect on Friday, marking the first tangible step toward ending a two-year Israeli military campaign in Gaza.
Since October 2023, Israeli airstrikes and ground operations have killed more than 67,800 Palestinians, most of them women and children, leaving much of the enclave devastated and uninhabitable. — Agencies