🔴 Israeli occupation continues to target Palestinian political prisoners released in exchange deals

🔴 Palestinian Prisoner’s Society: At least 40 former prisoners from the latest exchange deal re-arrested

September 30, 2025

Ramallah, occupied Palestine – The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society stated that the Israeli occupation continues to escalate its targeting of Palestinian political prisoners released in the latest prisoner exchange deals, carrying out arrests and field interrogations against them. 

The latest of these was the re-arrest of released political prisoner Hanan Barghouthi, who was detained this Tuesday morning from her home in the town of Kobar, near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. 

The PPS added that this escalation is part of a systematic policy and a clear and renewed breach of the prisoner exchange deal. It sends a message to all released prisoners that they remain within the scope of targeting and persecution.

The PPS further stated, based on its documentation of daily and ongoing arrests, that the occupation has re-arrested at least 40 former political prisoners released in the most recent exchange deal, which took place in January and February of this year, with 16 of them still in detention, including three women. Most have been placed under “administrative detention” without trial or charge. Among the most prominent is Wael Al-Jaghoub from Nablus, who had previously spent 23 years in Israeli occupation prisons.

The PPS noted that some of the released prisoners have been targeted multiple times through arrests, interrogations, and field questioning. These actions are part of a long-standing series of policies and tools the occupation has employed against released prisoners over decades. However, this pattern became especially evident with the re-arrest of dozens of prisoners released in the “Wafa al-Ahrar” deal in 2014.

The PPS highlighted that the occupation has entrenched its targeting of released prisoners through various means, including military orders that provide broader legal cover for targeting them, along with laws and proposed legislation. In the latest exchange deal, the targeting rose to the level of organized terror operations carried out against them up to the very last moment of their release from Israeli occupation prisons. This included severe physical assault they were subjected to just before being freed, which has continued post-release, also affecting their families, who have faced ongoing threats that persist to this day.