Some Palestinian prisoners appeared at the time of their release with broken hands and fingers (Al Jazeera)

Anyone who looks at the Palestinian resistance men as they bid farewell to their Zionist and foreign prisoners finds a completely different view than the way the Zionist bids farewell to Palestinian prisoners. What raises the question: What happens in prisons, detention centers and places of detention, until the Palestinian prisoner comes out and pours curses on the Zionist occupier and his barbaric jailer, in exchange for the Zionist or foreigner orphaning his Palestinian jailer after his short period of detention in Gaza?

It is a strange scene that one rarely finds in any prison, as the Palestinian resistance men greet their released prisoners by hand, while they are inside the Red Cross car, and the prisoners respond to them in the same way, and the prisoner may initiate the greeting and the resistance responds to him.

On the other hand, the Palestinian prisoner is released from his prison and does not pay attention to his jailer or heed. We see the Zionist prisoners in the scenes of the exchange, getting out of the cars with the road in their hands: bottles of water, juices and preserved food, while we see the Palestinian prisoners with nothing in their hands.

The resistance fighters hand over their prisoners in front of the crowd in Palestine Square in central Gaza, especially in the final days of the truce that began on November 24. Palestinian prisoners are released from prisons in a complete blackout, journalists and residents are banned from approaching, and driven into buses where ventilation entrances are deliberately closed, some editors say.

In the Palestinian prison, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar visited – according to Israeli television – the prisoners and dispelled their fears about the Israeli bombardment, saying: "They are in the safest place, and nothing will happen to them," and in return a Palestinian prisoner did not see news about the visit of a political official to them.

After arriving at the homes, the homes of the released Israelis were overwhelmed, and Palestinian celebrations were forbidden by order of the angry Interior Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, with the threat of returning the prisoners to their prison if they violated the instructions, as well as punishing the celebrants. It is true that the Palestinians did not pay any attention to this decision, but the mere desire to be deprived of the show of joy is significant.

The farewell letters carried accurate pictures of the conditions of the prisoner, and the condition of the jailer here and there. On October 23, 2023, Hamas released two elderly Israelis: Yoshived Lifshitz, 85, and Nurit Cooper, 79.

One of them, described by Israeli officials as an elderly senile woman, said of the resistance fighters who detained her: "They were friendly with us, they took care of us, they gave us medicine, they treated one of us who was injured by the motorcycle that took him into Gaza, they gave him medicines and antibiotics, and the kidnappers kept our place of detention clean, as well as the bathrooms that they cleaned, not us, and they shared the same food with us, and they told us, 'We are Muslims and we will not harm you, and we were treated well.'"

The Qassam Brigades also published a letter on 23 November, accompanied by a photo of Israeli prisoner Alsun Daniel Aloni and her daughter Emilia, who were released as part of the first batch of prisoner exchanges, writing in her letter to the Qassam fighters: "I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your unnatural humanity towards my daughter Emilia, you were like a parent to her, you invited her to your room at every opportunity she wanted.

She admits the feeling that you are all her friends, not just friends, but good true lovers. Thank you for the many hours you were like a nanny. Thank you for being patient with her and flooding her with sweets, fruits and everything that exists even if it is not available. The children should not be in captivity, but thanks to you and other good people we knew on the way, my daughter considered herself queen in Gaza.

We have never met anyone on our long path, from elements to leaders, who has not acted towards them with kindness, tenderness and love. I will forever be a prisoner of thanksgiving because my daughter didn't get out of here with psychological trauma.

I will mention to you your good behavior despite the difficult situation you have been dealing with yourselves and the difficult losses you have suffered here in Gaza. I wish we in this world could be truly good friends. I wish you all health and wellness. Health and love to you and your family. Thanks a lot. "

In a posted video, a twenty-something girl thanks her Hamas jailer and accuses them with translated Hebrew words that carry praise for the days she spent in captivity, with some even sarcastically quoting her as saying she did not say, "Bye. I need to see you in the next flood."

Finally, among the released Israeli prisoners in the fourth batch was the young woman who came out cradling her dog who was with her in captivity.

On the contrary, Palestinian children came out of captivity in a scene of grip, after which they recounted deliberately starving and dying, preventing them from changing dirty clothes, from washing, and from daily psychological and physical humiliation with insults and severe beatings.

Some Palestinian prisoners appeared at the time of their release with broken hands and fingers, some described being severely beaten with sticks on the back, and one said that a colleague had not yet been freed from the horror of the beatings.

Some of them talked about the process of separating the prisoners so that they would not talk to each other, contrary to what the Zionist prisoners narrated that Hamas soldiers grouped the prisoners of each "kibbutz" together, so that they would not feel bored.

These vivid images put us in front of several connotations:

  • First, Israel's desire to leave indelible imprints of humiliation, enslavement and humiliation in the hearts of Palestinian prisoners to provoke more anger.

Such an atmosphere only generates a determination to resist and graduate batches of young people who wish to take revenge and salvation from a humiliating and humiliating climate that degrades their human dignity and the dignity of their people and their homeland, even if it costs them their lives.

  • Second, Israel's image of the resisters stems from a self that has grown to hatred of others and a sense of superiority towards them, and it is the same that Zionist myths have painted about the Jew as a person distinct from other human beings.

All these delusions increase the certainty on the other side that there is no hope for any peace in the near horizon, and that the distance between people on both sides is too far.

  • Third: The image painted by the resistance in the memory of the Israeli prisoner leads to achieving real peace in the future, as it recognizes the other as a human being even if he is occupied, and it plays the role of a goodwill ambassador.

It is true that the impact may not appear quickly, but there is no hope in the near future without it, as it is another form of struggle, no less effective than armed resistance, boycott and others, on that long and arduous road to liberation and independence from the yoke of Zionist colonialism supported by its Western founders.

  • Fourth, the sophisticated behavior of Hamas and Islamic Jihad soldiers with the prisoners during their handover to the Red Cross is conclusive evidence of the falsity of the image that Israel has succeeded in painting before the West of the Palestinian resistance as a terrorist, a dry person belonging to a religion that incites violence.