Fuad Kamamji described the moment he saw his son’s name on a list of Palestinian prisoners to be released by Israel as one of “rare happiness.”
“We have been accepting God’s fate in the worst conditions,” Mr. Kamamji said. “We were content with all the difficult things that came our way. But now, we are feeling a joy we haven’t known in a long time.”
His son, Eham Kamamji, 39, was arrested in 2006 and has been serving a life sentence since his conviction for the kidnapping and murder of an Israeli settler, Eliyahu Asheri. He has been in solitary confinement since 2021, when he was among six Palestinians who temporarily escaped from Israel’s Gilboa Prison in what Israeli officials said was the largest Palestinian jailbreak in more than two decades.
On Friday, Israel released a list of prisoners to be freed as part of the cease-fire deal that it reached with Hamas. Under the agreement, the Palestinian militant group will free the remaining 48 hostages it holds, of which Israel believes 20 are still alive.
Israel will release about 250 Palestinian prisoners, most of whom are serving life sentences, and 1,700 Gazans who were detained during the war and were not involved in the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, according to a government resolution released on Friday. Most of those who are serving life sentences did not deny the accusations when they were convicted, and said they were acting as resistance fighters.
While Eham Kamamji was on the list of prisoners set to be freed, it indicated that he would be sent into exile, rather than being permitted to return home to Jenin, in the West Bank.
Fuad Kamamji said he was holding off from celebrating because his son had been mentioned in prior swap deals that never materialized. “But what I’m feeling now is a strong sense of relief and peace,” he said. “I believe my son will be out, whether among us or in exile. The important thing is that he’ll be free.”
Across the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians with imprisoned relatives have been absorbing the news of who would be released, who would be exiled, and who would remain behind bars — namely, prisoners whose release Israel sees as intolerable.
One of those Israel has refused to free is Hassan Salama, 54, a senior Hamas figure. He was sentenced to more than 40 life terms in prison for orchestrating suicide bombings in 1996 that killed dozens of Israelis and wounded hundreds, after Israel’s assassination of the militant group’s well-known bomb-maker Yahya Ayyash.
Ghufran Zamel, 42, became engaged to Mr. Salama 16 years ago, when he was already behind bars. Last year, she emigrated to Turkey. Ms. Zamel said she feared that Hamas’s release of all the Israeli hostages, ending any leverage it holds, “would mean a death sentence” to any Palestinian prisoner not on Israel’s release list.
For many of the families of the Israeli victims of the attacks, however, the news that the perpetrators would be freed stirred complicated emotions.
Renana Meir, whose mother, Dafna, was stabbed to death outside her home in the West Bank settlement of Otniel in 2016, wrote in an Israeli newspaper on Friday that the imminent release of her mother’s killer would pose a threat to Israelis everywhere.
Still, she believed that her mother would have been in favor of their release in exchange for the return of Israeli hostages. “I know you would have done this without thinking twice, if it were up to you,” she wrote.
More than half of the prisoners to be released by Israel are to be sent into exile, according to the list, but it was unclear where they would be sent. That includes Basem Khandaqji, a Palestinian writer who was sentenced to three life terms for his involvement in the Carmel Market suicide bombing in 2004, which killed three Israelis and wounded dozens more.
While in prison, Mr. Khandaqji has published poetry collections and several novels, including the acclaimed “A Mask, the Color of the Sky,” which won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2024.
His sister, Amani Khandaqji, said she felt “over the clouds” about his possible release. “He could be deported,” she said, “but at least he will be free.”
Sara Salem, a resident of Jericho, in the West Bank, was waiting for the release of her husband, Ahmad Kaabnah, a veteran Fatah member, who has been behind bars for 28 of his 54 years, after being convicted of killing two Israeli settlers.
She said she had barely slept since the deal was announced. “I couldn’t even open the TV to see if the cease-fire had come into effect or not because it was all eating me up inside,” she said.
Ms. Salem was pregnant with their second child when Mr. Kaabnah was arrested. They had a third later through in vitro fertilization, with sperm smuggled out of prison. Today, Mr. Kaabnah has five grandchildren, with a sixth on the way. He has not been allowed to meet with anyone, including his family, since before the war in Gaza, Ms. Salem said.
She said she hoped Mr. Kaabnah “would return to us,” but he, too, is slated for exile once he is freed.
Still, his potential release has her racked with tension, Ms. Salem said. “We are sitting like on fire,” she said, “and waiting for the news to tell us our Ahmad will be free.”
Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting from Tel Aviv.
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