JERUSALEM: A senior Hamas official said on Wednesday that negotiators from his group and Israel had exchanged lists of prisoners and hostages who would be released should a deal be reached during the ongoing Gaza ceasefire talks in Egypt.
Following are some of the most prominent Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. It is not yet clear if any of them will be released:
Abdullah Al-Barghouti: He was sentenced to 67 life terms in 2004 by an Israeli military court for his involvement in a series of suicide attacks in 2001 and 2002 that killed dozens of Israelis.
A father of three, he was born in Kuwait in 1972. In 1996, he moved with his family to live in Beit Rima village near Ramallah in the West Bank.
Ibrahim Hamed: He was handed 54 life terms after he was arrested in 2006 in Ramallah. He is accused by Israel of planning suicide attacks that killed dozens of Israelis.
Hamed, who had been on Israel’s wanted list for eight years before his arrest, was the top West Bank commander of the Izz El-Deen Al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas military wing.
Hassan Salama: Born in Gaza’s Khan Younis refugee camp in 1971, Salama was convicted of orchestrating a wave of suicide bombings in Israel in 1996 that killed dozens of Israelis and wounded hundreds more.
He was sentenced to 48 life terms in jail. Salama said the attacks were a response to the assassination of Hamas bombmaker Yahya Ayyash in 1996. Salama was arrested in Hebron in the West Bank later that year.
Marwan Al-Barghouti: A leading member of the Fatah movement that controls the Palestinian Authority, Barghouti is seen as a possible successor to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
He made his name as a leader and organizer in both of the Intifadas, or uprisings, waged by the Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1987.
He was arrested in 2002, charged with orchestrating gun ambushes and suicide bombings and sentenced to five life terms in 2004.
Ahmed Saadat: Saadat, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was accused by Israel of ordering the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi in 2001.
Pursued by Israel, he took shelter at the Ramallah headquarters of Arafat. Under a deal with the Palestinian Authority in 2002, Saadat stood trial in a Palestinian court and was incarcerated at a Palestinian Authority jail, where he was held under international supervision.
The Israeli military seized Saadat in 2006 following the withdrawal of the foreign monitors, and put him on trial in a military court. He was sentenced to 30 years in jail in 2008.
