Israel on Monday freed nearly 2,000 Palestinians — including hundreds of terror convicts serving life terms — from its prisons as part of a deal to reach a ceasefire and release the hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Shortly after 20 living hostages were freed, Israel put 1,968 Palestinian prisoners on buses that departed for the West Bank and Gaza.

Among those freed were 250 security prisoners, most of them serving one or more life terms for deadly attacks on Israelis. They include a Palestinian police officer who joined in the notorious lynching of two reservists at the start of the Second Intifada in 2000, a Gaza resident who raped and murdered a 13-year-old boy and dozens of other terrorists responsible for a series of suicide bombings and other attacks.

Hamas said 154 of the prisoners were deported to Egypt.

At the same time in southern Israel’s Ketziot Prison, 1,718 Gazan detainees uninvolved in the October 7, 2023, massacre, who were arrested as unlawful combatants during the war, went free. Among the detainees were a handful of women and children.

Families of the terrorists’ victims, who were notified by the government ahead of their release, expressed intense pain and grief coupled with joy for the returning hostages and their loved ones.

Early in the morning, police and prison forces arrived at Ofer Prison near Ramallah in the West Bank to prepare the release of the security prisoners. Some 88 of the prisoners were sent back to the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Posters hung up on........

© The Times of Israel