ISRAEL REDETAINS EX-PRISONER FREED IN SHALIT DEAL
Nablus, 3 Rajab 1434/13 May 2013 (MINA) – Israeli forces on Sunday morning (12/5) redetained a former prisoner who was released from Israeli jail in a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas in 2011, locals said.
Israeli forces took Tahrir Sati al-Qinna, 35, and her brother Saddam, 25, to an unknown location after raiding their village, Kafr Qalil, south of Nablus in the northern West Bank. Soldiers raided the village at 3 a.m.
The brother and sister are affiliated to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, locals said as Maan reported, monitored by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).
An Israeli army spokeswoman said she was looking into the report.
Israel has re-arrested over a dozen former prisoners it released under the terms of a deal to free captured soldier Gilad Shalit in October 2011.
Separately, Israeli forces raided the Rafedia neighborhood, west of Nablus and detained 42-year-old Omar Abdul-Rahim al-Hanbali.
A relative told the Tadamun (Solidarity) Foundation for Human Rights that large numbers of Israeli troops ransacked al-Hanbali’s house late Saturday and took him to Huwwara detention center.
Al-Hanbali is a pharmacist, according to Ahmad al-Bitawi of Tadamun.
He highlighted that al-Hanbali’s brother Muhammad, an engineer and prominent leader within Hamas’ military wing, was assassinated by Israeli forces in 2003.
The Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange followed an agreement between Israel and Hamas to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,027 prisoners – mainly Palestinians and Arab-Israelis, though among the prisoners released there was also a Ukrainian prisoner, a Jordanian prisoner, and a Syrian prisoner.
280 of these were sentenced to life in prison for planning and perpetrating various terror attacks against Israeli targets. Hamas military leader Ahmed Jabari was quoted in the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al-Hayat as confirming that the prisoners released as part of the deal were collectively responsible for the killing of 569 Israeli civilians.
The agreement came five years and four months after Palestinian militants captured Shalit in southern Israel along the Gaza border.
The deal, brokered by German and Egyptian mediators and coordinated by Bundesnachrichtendienst agent Gerhard Conrad, was signed in Egypt on 11 October 2011. Its first phase was executed on 18 October 2011, with Israel releasing 477 Palestinian prisoners and Hamas transferring Shalit to Cairo. In the second phase, which took place during December 2011, another 550 prisoners were released.
The agreement is the largest prisoner exchange agreement Israel has ever made, given that as part of the agreement Israel agreed to release 1,027 prisoners for one captured Israeli soldier – the highest price Israel has ever paid for a single soldier. Gilad Shalit was also the first captured Israeli soldier to be released alive in 26 years. (T/P01/P04).
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
