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When Palestinian activist Bushra Al-Tahil was released from an Israeli prison in exchange for hostages in celebrated Hamas earlier this week, many media reports referred to her as a prisoner, or worseA terrorist.
This was despite the fact that no Israeli court had convicted her for a crime, nor accused her, nor had he presented to her any evidence on why she was imprisoned for more than 10 months.
However, in the eyes of the world, Al-Tahil says she was forced to seem guilty.
“They are just trying to make us criminals,” News told CBC in an interview in his mother’s living room in Ramallah, in occupied Bank, a few days after his release.
Palestinian detainees and their defenders say that the wide characterization of Palestinians as prisoners is part of a deliberate strategy.
“The (Israeli hostages) that are in Gaza are considered ‘kidnapped’, because the criminals kidnapped them,” Al-Tahil said. But because they arrested her in an Israeli prison, she says she became “prisoner.”
Thousands of ecstatic Israelis held in the streets of Tel Aviv and other cities when Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher were finally freed from Gaza last Sunday. Hamas says he will launch four Israeli hostages more next Saturday, in exchange for another large group of Palestinian detainees.
Look | The high fire agreement begins as 3 Israeli hostages launched: 
El Alto El Fuego between Hamas and Israel has begun with the first three hostages released from Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel. The unstable temporal truce also sees an increase in the permitted humanitarian aid.
While there is no doubt that the three women lived a nightmare of 470 days in Gaza, Al-Tahil says that his time in an Israeli prison was also arduous. She says she endured months of isolation, abuse and psychological abuse of her captors.
Prison rights activist
Al-Tahil, 30, has been well known by security officials in Israel and the Palestinian authority for many years.
A prominent defender of the rights of prisoners in the West Bank with a presence in high profile social networks, was arrested or arrested seven times since he was 18 years old, and was part of an exchange of prisoners involving the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011.
Al-Tahil says that only once was convicted of something: incitement to terrorism. She says it is a term that can cover anything that Israeli authorities want. In that case, she says she was giving speeches and making publications on resisting the occupation of Israel.
She said that her father, who is also imprisoned in an Israeli prison, can be released as part of the ongoing detainee/Hostage Swaps.
The Ministry of Justice of Israel has list Bushra Al-Tahil as an affiliate to Hamas, but told CBC News that it is not true.
Under the controversial administrative detention rules of Israel, which due to the recent changes Now apply only non -Jews: the government is not obliged to publicly reveal what evidence you have to keep people in prison for security reasons.
Al-Tahil says that in March, Israeli security services appeared in the department of a friend where she had been staying and “hit her severely” before taking her to prison. In jail, he says that she was subjected to random searches and intimidation repeated by male guards, including the issuance of female hygiene items.
“It was a matter of revenge,” he said. She argues that the Israeli authorities were angry at the attacks of October 7, 2023 of Hamas and that her last activism against the occupation of Israel of the West Bank made her an easy target.
CBC News contacted the Israeli army for more details about the case of Al-Tahil, but was sent to the country’s security service. No calls and phone messages were returned.
Administrative detention
Sarit Michaeli, from B zelem, an Israeli human rights NGO, says that the question of who is a prisoner and who is a detainee is “murky.”
“Some (prisoners) have been convicted of anything. Others have been convicted of killing dozens of Israeli. But then there is another group of Palestinian prisoners who have been sentenced in Israeli courts of crimes that Israelis would never be arrested or loaded, for example , for example, crimes related to public order incitation or crimes, “Michaeli told CBC News.
“Probably the vast majority of prisoners that Israelis would characterize as ‘terrorists’ have not done anything violent,” he said.
With the Israeli hostages of Hamas and other militant groups, Al-Tahil says that the guards of her prison told her that she and other Palestinian women were arrested simply to be exchanged for Israeli hostages.
“Everyone was waiting for the agreement (high the fire), because there was no (way) to justify our arrest,” he said.
An outstanding Palestinian politician in the West Bank told CBC News that Israeli tactics of gathering people before such exchanges is well known.
“We are playing cat and mouse,” said Sabri Saydam, the main member of the Fatah party, which dominates the Palestinian authority in Ramallah.
In the hours after the high fire in Gaza, the Israeli troops opened a new front in the conflict, sending a great military contingent to the city of Jenin de Bncal to “eradicate terrorism,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a mail.
Social networks photos On Monday night he seemed to show dozens of Palestinians stopped by the Israel security forces.
“The initial figures show that those that have been rounded last night and the previous night amounts to what exceeds the size of those who will be released,” Saydam said Tuesday.
Look | Israeli forces kill at least 9 Palestinians in the West Bank: 
Israeli forces killed at least nine Palestinians in the West Bank occupied in an important operation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he intends to ‘defeat terrorism’. It is the fear of the pause that Gaza’s war will resume there.
Among the 90 Palestinians changed in the agreement last weekend, more than 60 were women and all but eight were arrested after the October 7 attacks.
None of the Palestinians released in the first lot during the weekend was convicted of killing the Israelis. Among the most serious crimes was an attempted murder attempt against a 15 -year -old boy, although he had not been convicted when he was released Monday morning.
If the high fire agrees with the plan, the subsequent detainees/hostage swaps will include people convicted of capital crimes, according to the list published by the Israel government.
Israeli television stations report that of more than 700 Palestinians that could eventually be released, those who have been convicted of murder could end with more than 100.
Another 1,000 people captured in Gaza by the Israeli forces will also be returned to the territory, but the Israeli authorities have not said if it is suspected that commits crimes.
The issue of equivalence
While many Palestinians see the difficult situation of detainees such as that of the captured Israeli hostages, the issue of equivalence is to polarize in Israel, and among Jewish groups outside the country, even in Canada.
Honest Reporting Canada, who announces himself as a guard dog on the “just and precise” media coverage of Israel, has Expressed support For the administrative detention rules of Israel and declared that any equivalence between the Palestinians in Israeli and hostage prisons is “morally obtuse.”
After the first and only round of hostage/detainees in November 2023, the American Jewish committee issued its own Fact sheet, Stating that the Palestinians held in Israeli prisons “made an active decision to commit a crime”, while the only “crime” committed by Israeli hostages and other foreign hostages was that they were “Jews or were in Israel.”
On Tuesday, an Israeli Arab member of the Israel Knést caused an online reaction from the Jewish Israelis after publishing that he was happy with the release of the three hostages of the three women, as well as the Palestinian prisoners.
“We were all free,” said Ayman Odeh.
Later on the social media platform X, Odeh explained While the Jewish Israeli “tend to see mainly Jewish suffering, I see and feel the suffering of both peoples, this is simply reality, not only mine, but of all the Arabs living in this country.”
Bushra Al-Tahil says she has been enjoying her freedom, spending time with her mother and reading. But he fears that peace will be shortly and that, in a short time, he will return behind bars.
“We are always worried. Not because we are afraid, but because the situation will never be good.”
