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Many of the 154 Palestinians released after decades in Israeli prisons remain in Egypt under surveillance, rather than returning home to their families, according to an Agence France-Presse report (AFP).
The ceasefire agreement reached between the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, and Israel on October 10 stipulated the release of all hostages held in the Gaza Strip in exchange for around 2,000 Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons.
Among them, 154 Palestinians serving life sentences were deported to Egypt. Since mid-October, they have been confined to a hotel without identification documents and are not allowed to leave without security clearance.
The report says that all of them had been sentenced by an Israeli military court to life in prison on charges of murder, belonging to Palestinian militant groups banned by Israel, and other acts of violence.
But when a ceasefire took effect in Gaza earlier this month, the group was put on buses and sent to Egypt, where authorities have put them in a five-star hotel that they cannot leave without clearance.
In an interview with AFP, one of the released Palestinians, Murad Abu al-Rub, said that the 154 men are not free to move, have no work permits, and remain uncertain about what comes next.
"No Arab country wanted to take us in," Abu al-Rub added.
He also said that the government has not issued any formal statement about their status.
Abu al-Rub was imprisoned for the killing of four Israeli soldiers in 2006 in an operation by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a movement linked to the Palestinian Authority.
The report quotes Abu al-Rub as saying that they were separated from their families for 20 years, and now he lives in uncertainty and under close surveillance, far from his hometown of Jenin in the occupied West Bank.
"Nothing has changed. I still can't see my mother or my siblings," Abu al-Rub told a team of AFP journalists who were able to access the hotel.
Most notably, the vast majority of the Palestinians serving life sentences who were released have been exiled to Egypt—a country that maintains formal diplomatic relations with Israel and has played a key role in mediating between the two sides.
Human rights organizations have long criticized Israel’s use of military courts to prosecute Palestinians accused of security-related offenses, arguing that these courts fail to provide fair trial guarantees.
Palestinian, Israeli and international rights groups have documented similar claims of mistreatment, but Israel denies any such violations and says its prison service operates in accordance with the law.
According to the Palestinian Authority, nearly 11,000 Palestinians remain in Israeli custody, on charges related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Egypt first received 150 exiled prisoners in January, and more than eight months later, most of them are still in the same hotel, their fate undecided.
Hasan Abd Rabbo, of the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) based in the Palestinian territories, told AFP that the men remain in Egypt with accommodation costs covered by Qatar, while talks are underway over resettlement.
He said possible destinations include Qatar, Türkiye, Pakistan and Malaysia.
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