On the fifth of last May, and a few weeks before the fall of his government, Israeli Prime Minister "Naftali Bennett" sat busy watching an official ceremony commemorating the dead Israeli soldiers in the wars of occupation with neighboring countries, and while he was watching, the man was surprised to be attacked by the families of the dead Israelis They arrived at Mount Herzl in occupied Jerusalem, where the event was held, and described him with many descriptions, perhaps the most prominent of which were "traitor, despicable and fraudulent, you should be ashamed of yourself."

Bennett remained silent but quickly interrupted the protesters' cries, saying: "Breaking families are sacred and allowed to cry, Israel will not forget Hadar Goldin, Oron Shaul, Abraham Mengistu, Hisham al-Sayed and other missing persons."

By remaining silent, Bennett wanted to underscore that he was bound by the Israeli pledge that "the state is willing to make sacrifices for any individuals it expects to make sacrifices for."

In fact, however, he has taken the approach of belated Israeli leaders, who are convinced that rescuing their soldiers through “unbalanced” exchange deals encourages their opponents to capture more soldiers, as well as allowing the release of Palestinians convicted of armed attacks against Israelis.

This reality prompted Hamas a few days ago to publish a video showing one of its Israeli prisoners, and it seems that the movement wants to move the prisoner exchange file to conclude a deal as soon as possible, by pushing the families of the detainees to pressure the Israeli government in this direction.

Prisoner exchange.. battles without bullets

Prisoner exchange, which took place in 1983

On November 23 of each year, the Palestinians commemorate the largest prisoner exchange, which took place in 1983, in which 4,600 prisoners were released in exchange for 6 Israeli soldiers.

On the day of the completion of the deal, whose negotiations were led by the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah), the port of Tripoli (Northern Lebanon) witnessed an unusual movement, when the captured Israeli soldiers were transferred to the port, then loaded in boats to a French ship 8 kilometers from the shores of Tripoli, where they were handed over to them. The Israelis are delegates of the Red Cross.

At this time, southern Lebanon witnessed a similar operation, as the leadership of the Israeli occupation army released 3,600 prisoners who were transferred to the Lebanese interior, while about 1024 prisoners chose to be transferred to Algeria.

Over the decades of its occupation of the Palestinian lands, the occupying power has arrested hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, some of whom have been arrested more than once, as most Palestinian homes were arrested.

Thousands of Arab citizens and solidarity activists of various foreign nationalities were also arrested.

Since the Palestinian and Arab resistance operations provided the opportunity to detain dozens of Israelis, researchers have recorded 36 prisoner exchanges since 1949, most of which were of course among the Palestinians.

The first Palestinian deals between the PLO and the occupation took place in 1968 after the "Fatah" movement hijacked an Israeli plane belonging to the "El Al" airline on its way from Rome to Tel Aviv, where the pilots were forced to go to Algeria with more than 100 passengers.

Over the following years, prisoner exchange deals of various sizes continued until the year 2011, which witnessed a major exchange deal between Israel and Hamas known as the “Shalit deal,” in which 1,027 Palestinian prisoners were released in exchange for one sergeant in the Israeli armored corps. Millions preserve the scenes of Israeli prison service convoys filled with hundreds of Palestinian prisoners who were transferred to sites in the West Bank and on the Israeli-Egyptian border, while the Israeli prisoner "Gilad Shalit", who was arrested by the Palestinian resistance in 2006, was transferred to an Israeli military base on the Egyptian border, and from there to An air base in the occupying country.It was a long and painful epic. Over the course of 5 years, the period of his detention in Gaza, the residents of the Strip suffered from a severe economic siege and repeated military aggression in order to liberate him, while Israeli leaders made strenuous efforts to return him, and Israel had no choice but to submit to a large exchange deal. After being unable to free the soldier who was being held a few kilometers from its border by a military operation.

In terms of exchange deals with Arab countries, 26 Arab exchange deals were concluded with the occupation, started by Egypt in 1949, then Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, and all of them were able to release thousands of prisoners.

Hezbollah took a significant share of these deals. In 2008, 5 gunmen were released in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers detained by the party, and in 2004 the occupation released about 400 prisoners in exchange for a former colonel in the Israeli army along with the bodies of 3 soldiers. Then came “Operation Honest Promise.” The famous party in 2006 became one of the most important operations that led to the exchange deal in 2008, when party members attacked an Israeli military patrol and captured two soldiers with the aim of exchanging them for detained prisoners, most notably the late leader of the party, Samir Kuntar.

Towards the new exchange deal... Israel is under pressure

A released Palestinian prisoner (right) is greeted upon his arrival at the Rafah crossing in the southern Gaza Strip on December 18, 2011. Israel planned to release 550 Palestinian prisoners in the second phase of a deal with Hamas that brought back Gilad Shalit after five years of captivity in the Gaza Strip.

(Reuters)

On the evening of October 11, 2011, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began the cabinet session in his government at the time, declaring that a prisoner exchange deal had been concluded because the “window of opportunity” was almost closing in the face of Tel Aviv.

Netanyahu clearly referred to the upcoming Egyptian elections, which many expected would bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt (as it did in 2012).

Moreover, there were other factors that prompted Netanyahu to think about concluding the Shalit deal, including the bilateral tensions arising from the security situation in Sinai, and the Egyptian demonstrators’ attack on the Israeli embassy in Cairo in 2012 during the events of the Egyptian revolution, all of which suggested to him that the right moment would not come. After 2011 never.

Now the political conditions are back to casting a shadow over the file of the four prisoners held by Hamas in Gaza, but it seems that the Palestinian resistance today is taking the initiative to move the file and secure a prisoner exchange agreement, by taking advantage of the existing conditions in Israel, where the Israeli government is currently undergoing changes and transformations. After the dissolution of the Israeli Knesset as a result of the disintegration of the ruling coalition, and then Gaza now sees the impact of the turbulent political situation in Tel Aviv that the time is right for it to extract an agreement from the interim government;

What may be in the interest of the latter, which needs good papers before the Israelis in the elections expected next fall, in which Prime Minister Yair Lapid fears Netanyahu's return to power, and perhaps this is a common interest also between Lapid and Hamas leaders.

After a series of moves that did not lead to a real deal since the arrest of the four soldiers, the last important step came when the movement published a short video clip showing “Hisham al-Sayed,” one of the prisoners, lying down and receiving oxygen, the first time that a prisoner was seen by Hamas. From the video, the movement tried to pressure for the 500 sick Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, and at the same time wanted to send a signal to Tel Aviv that the time for the deal had come, which Hamas seeks to include important names of Palestinians who received strict sentences and spent in prisons Israeli over 40 years.

Over the past year, several media outlets have reported that secret discussions are underway in this file, in which the Al-Qassam Brigades affiliated with Hamas have the final say, until it was said that the Egyptian mediators received official and clear guarantees from Hamas and Israel that the two sides are committed to the broad outlines of the deal, and only the understanding remains. On the details of time, place and other logistical matters.

There were also developments last September, when Hamas proposed what it described as a “road map” to reach an exchange deal, and the proposed provisions stipulated that an unspecified number of prisoners be released, especially the elderly, women, adolescents and the sick, in exchange for Tel Aviv to obtain Information on the condition of the Israelis detained by the movement.

In this context, Palestinian researcher Osama Moin Murtaja said in an interview with Meidan that raising Israeli public opinion is important in triggering a new exchange deal, as the parents of the two prisoners, Shaul Aron and Golden, play a role in putting pressure on the government and decision-makers. the Israelis.

Murtaja called for the formation of a national media committee directed at the Israeli street to promote an image that Tel Aviv ignores the Israeli prisoners.

In addition to the above, Murtaja also suggested the formation of a national committee from all Palestinian factions to manage the prisoners’ file to avoid the mistakes that accompanied the Shalit deal, pointing to the importance of an international mediator (or more) putting pressure on the occupying state, as happened in the “Ahmed deal” Jibril", as the European mediator in that deal ensured that none of the liberated Palestinian prisoners would be re-arrested.

Prisoners at the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict

On May 20, 1985, the most accurate prisoner exchange process in the Arab-Israeli conflict took place, where Palestinian, Lebanese and Israeli prisoners were exchanged in 3 locations at once and according to Palestinian conditions, bringing the total number of prisoners released to 1150 detainees in exchange for the Palestinian resistance releasing 3 soldiers Israelis, under the supervision of the International Red Cross and mediated by Austria.

The operation was called "Operation Galilee", and to this day it is still one of the most dynamic operations in its details and consequences, as the Palestinians insisted on the release of the Japanese prisoner "Koze Komoto", who carried out the heroic operation at Lod Airport in 1972, after Israel offered the leadership of the front Popularity to take out 200 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for keeping it.

Syria and Libya also played a key role in the deal, as the prisoners were held in Syria under the supervision of the Popular Front, while Libya provided logistics services and provided planes that transported the liberated prisoners from an airport in Switzerland to Libya, and Tripoli, Lebanon, hosted the liberated prisoners.

It can be said that the operation was the first process of real involvement of the leadership of the prisoners inside the Israeli prisons in managing the negotiations through the official of the PFLP detainees, "Hafez al-Dalqmouni".

The Japanese prisoner "Kose Komoto", who carried out the heroic operation at Lod Airport in 1972

On the ground, the momentum associated with the deal encouraged young people to engage in militancy and shift from defense to offense;

What created the conditions for igniting the intifada?

Rather, as the Israelis themselves said, the Galilee deal was the main reason for triggering the first intifada of stones in 1987. All the organizations in that uprising used the prisoners who were released in the 1985 deal, who played a major role in leading the course of the first intifada.

Saeed Bisharat, editor-in-chief of Al-Hodhud Network for Israeli Affairs, confirms that prisoner exchange deals are among the most important tools of the Palestinian struggle against the occupation, and they are deals that show the weakness of the Israeli occupation and the ability to blackmail it through its weak point (including the human element), and to produce a Palestinian achievement that affects morale. Palestinian positive.

In his interview with Meydan, Bisharat added, "The importance of these deals lies in renewing the spirit of the Palestinian national struggle, and giving impetus to the development of the Palestinian resistance, as well as their importance in saving the lives of the resistance fighters, as they constitute a moral, political and security victory over the Israeli occupation." For example, with the Shalit deal called "Wafaa Al-Ahrar", which he considers to be the largest deal between the Palestinian resistance and the Israeli occupation, given that it came at an inappropriate time for the occupation:

In sum, it seems that the occupation has become tough on the expected deal, which is called "Wafa Al-Ahrar 2", because of the political results associated with the first deal, but in light of the weak position of Tel Aviv, demanding to work for the release of its prisoners at any price in front of the Israeli public opinion, the resistance finds itself today in front of A powerful weapon in the face of the occupation and its policies in addition to its missiles and fighters, and it is a weapon that you can use constantly to put pressure, and the response to the operations of captivity with the Israeli military operations, which proved to have failed to liberate Shalit, encourages the resistance to use this weapon and intensify the pressure on the occupation, which increases opportunities The release of important prisoners, some of whom are sometimes pivotal to the leadership of the resistance and political action, such as Yahya Sinwar, who was released in the Shalit deal in 2011, and today leads the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip in full view of the occupation.