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Shin Bet admits: 80% of freed murderers returned to terror

Since October 7th, 2023, roughly 4,000 terrorists have been freed in exchange deals and ceasefires.

By World Israel News Staff

Statistics from Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency, presented Tuesday during a Knesset committee hearing, painted an alarming picture regarding the rate at which terrorists released in hostage or prisoner-exchange deals return to terrorism.

According to the data, 50 percent of the terrorists released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit deal returned to terror activity after being freed. Among those who had been convicted of murdering Jews, the rate was even higher: 80 percent reengaged in terrorism.

At the time of the Shalit deal, approximately 850 convicted Palestinian terrorists with “blood on their hands” were incarcerated in Israeli detention centers.

Today, only about 110 of those individuals remain in prison, despite many originally being sentenced to lengthy terms.

Even more disturbing, the Shin Bet revealed how frequently terrorists sentenced to life in prison are ultimately freed in exchange deals. Since the Shalit deal, 80 percent of terrorists sentenced to life terms have been released from Israeli prisons.

The committee was also presented data that indicated proximately 4,000 terrorists have been released from Israeli prisons in various hostage deals and ceasefires since the Hamas-led October 7th massacres.

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Religious Zionism MK Limor Son Har-Melech said the issue is deeply personal for her. Her first husband, Shuli Har-Melech, was slain by Palestinian terrorists in a shooting attack in 2003.

“The commander of the terror cell that murdered my husband and many others said in military court, ‘You are a weak nation and we are strong.’ Even though he was sentenced to seven life terms plus 20 years, he was eventually released after about two years,” Son Har-Melech recounted.

The terrorist was right not to take the court’s sentence seriously and “not worry about the number of years he was sentenced to,” she added.

Son Har-Melech had a son and was pregnant with her daughter at the time of the shooting that killed her husband. She was critically wounded and underwent an emergency cesarean section to save her baby, who miraculously survived.