Arab citizens of Israel released after deals with Hamas fear backlash

About a fifth of Israelis are Arabs, whose families lived in what would become Israel before the state was founded in 1948. Unlike the Palestinian refugees who ended up in the West Bank, Gaza and neighboring Arab countries, this group remained in Israel and received citizenship.

While they carry Israeli passports, can vote and exercise other civil rights, many Israeli-Arabs accuse Israel of treating them as second-class citizens and sympathize with Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and around the Middle East.

The Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7 killed more than 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, and sent 240 others back to Gaza as prisoners, according to Israeli officials. Israel responded by launching a large-scale military campaign in Gaza against Hamas, which controls the enclave. Health authorities there say the military campaign has killed more than 15,000 people, mostly women and children.

As the war escalated, most of the fifteen women posted messages on social media that led to their arrest.

One woman shared a joke about the capture of a female soldier and a message that read: “Where were the people who cried out for humanity when we were killed?” over photos of Palestinian children, according to screenshots viewed by The New York Times.

Another woman added a beating heart emoji to a post that read “Gaza today” with a photo of Palestinians riding a seized Israeli military vehicle, and shared a photo of Palestinians driving through a hole on October 7 breaking into the Gaza border fence with the text that read: “While the undefeatable army slept.”

These two women and twelve others were arrested and charged with identification with a terrorist group and other charges. Another woman in the group had previously been arrested on charges including attempted murder and identification with a terrorist group, but had not been convicted of any crime.

On November 24, Israel and Hamas agreed to the first of several weeklong ceasefires that would allow the release of 105 hostages from Gaza, mostly women and children, in exchange for 240 Palestinian women and minors who were held by Israel.