‘They see themselves as soldiers of jihad’: Palestinians freed in prisoner swap return to terror

On Wednesday, Israel launched its largest counterterror operation in months.

By Anna Epshtein, TPS

The recent death of 18-year-old Jibril Ghassan Jibril in an Israeli airstrike highlights a growing problem of Palestinians released in a November prisoner swap resuming terror activities.

Jibril was one of five terrorists killed in a recent Israeli airstrike on a joint operations room in the Nur Shams refugee camp on August 26.

He had been arrested for throwing explosives at soldiers and for membership in Hamas shortly after October 7, but was released in November as part of a temporary ceasefire and hostage release.

A relative told Israel’s Channel 14 on Tuesday that Jibril saw returning to terror as “paying a debt” to Palestinians in Gaza.

“He decided not to surrender, and to pay his debt to the citizens of Gaza who acted to free him. Father asked him, ‘Are you sure this is the way you want to go?’ And he answered, ‘How did I get out of the prison? I was released in a deal, and now I must pay the debt,’” said the relative, who was only identified as a brother.

At the end of November, Israel released 240 Palestinian prisoners, of whom 107 were between the ages of 14-17.

Some had been convicted of security offenses while others were awaiting trial in a military court. In exchange, Hamas freed 81 Israelis, 23 Thais and one Filipino.

“It’s not that the released terrorists are leading the terror in Samaria now, but they rushed to carry out terror attacks and to join the underground,” Maurice Hirsch told The Press Service of Israel.

Hirsch is the director of the Initiative for Palestinian Authority Accountability and Reform at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

“We don’t see the whole picture yet. The difficulty is also in the fact that in the last deal, unlike in the previous ones, Israel agreed not to put to prison those terrorists who got back to terror for the rest of their previous term. At best they will only get a new term for what they did after they had been released,” Hirsch explained to TPS-IL.

Hirsch also headed Israeli military prosecution in Judea and Samaria in the years following the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap of 2011.

In that deal, Israel released 1,027 Palestinian and Israeli-Arab security prisoners for Shalit, who was abducted by Hamas in 2006.

Most notable among the Palestinians freed was Yahya Sinwar, who masterminded the October 7 attacks and is Hamas’s Gaza strongman.

According to Hirsch, half of the 120 terrorists who went back to Judea and Samaria in the first part of the swap were re-arrested for returning to terror.

Of the overall 1,027 who were freed, at least 20% returned to terror, but Hirsch added, “we did not have enough info on them” and the real number is higher.

“Terrorists do not get perfected in prison. They see themselves as soldiers of jihad,” Hirsch told TPS-IL. “And this is the price of any deal that includes the release of terrorists.”

Jibril was not the only Palestinian teen who returned to terror after being freed in November.

Tarek Daoud was killed in a shootout with soldiers in Qalqilya after firing on an Israeli civilian who entered the city on Aug. 12.

The 18-year-old Daoud was a member of Hamas and underwent training with the terror group.

Three days later, 17-year-old Wael Masha was killed in an Israeli drone strike during an Aug. 15 counterterror raid in the Balata refugee camp in Shechem (Nablus).

Masha and another gunman fired on soldiers and posed a threat. Masha was also an acquaintance of Daoud.

Two other Palestinian women released in the November deal — Hanan Barghouti and Dania Hanatsha — were re-arrested in August and March respectively for their involvement in making pro-Hamas videos that incited violence.

On Wednesday, Israel launched its largest counterterror operation in months in the Jenin, Nur al-Shams and El Fara refugee camps located in northern Samaria and the Jordan Valley, and the village of Tubas, which is near Shechem (Nablus).

The operation was prompted by intelligence indicating that terror groups were preparing further attacks on Israel.

Since October 7, Israeli security forces have arrested more than 4,400 Palestinian terror suspects in Judea and Samaria of whom around 1,850 are affiliated with Hamas.

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