In the West Bank, the release of prisoners increases support for Hamas

The two cousins ​​saw each other on the bus leaving the prison, as shocked at seeing each other as they were by their sudden freedom. “Pinch me,” Anwar Atta, 18, said to his younger cousin. “I need to know if this is a dream.”

Then, early Sunday morning, the bus drove out of Ofer prison in the West Bank and into a crowd of cheering Palestinians. Before the cousins’ feet could touch the ground, they were hoisted into the air and carried through the streets of Ramallah, surrounded by people waving Palestinian and Hamas flags, revving their motorcycle engines and whistling in excitement.

“This is thanks to the resistance in Gaza,” Anwar said hours later from his family’s home on the outskirts of the city.

Anwar and his cousin, Mourad Atta, 17, are among 180 Palestinian teenagers and women released from Israeli prisons in recent days, the largest release of prisoners and detainees in more than a decade. Their freedom is part of a deal in which the Palestinians were exchanged for 81 hostages, many of them children, captured during the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Israel on October 7. The agreement also included a temporary ceasefire in the war in Israel. Gaza has killed more than 13,000 people, according to Gaza officials.

The Israeli bombardment of Gaza and elation over the release of prisoners have increased support for Hamas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority has controlled towns and villages for two decades. Gaza, the other Palestinian enclave, has been controlled by Hamas since 2007.

With many in the West Bank fearing that the war could spread into the occupied territory, some believe Hamas and other armed groups are the only ones they can trust to protect them.

The Palestinian Authority – controlled by the Fatah political faction – is deeply unpopular and widely seen as a subcontractor of the Israeli occupation. Long-simmering frustrations over the authority’s leadership and allegations of corruption have been exacerbated in the past year by an increase in violence by Israeli settlers.

For some Palestinians living under military occupation in the West Bank, the released prisoners have become a powerful symbol of Hamas’s ability to achieve tangible results and its willingness to fight for the Palestinian cause. Every night in Ramallah, as new groups of prisoners were released, one refrain echoed through the crowd: “The people want Hamas! The people want Hamas!”

Pollsters and analysts warn that support for the group is limited to a minority of residents and tends to increase temporarily during conflict in Gaza. But with fears that a broader war could break out in the West Bank, many say the growing support today has taken on a new, more existential quality.

There is a growing feeling that people need protection and that they “have no alternative,” said Ghassan Khatib, director of the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center, which specializes in research and opinion polls. “The only game in town is Hamas.”

Hours after his release, Anwar Atta and his cousin Mourad sat outside their families’ homes in Deir Abu Masha’al, a village of about 4,000 on the outskirts of Ramallah. A steady stream of neighbors and relatives came to welcome them home, smoking cigarettes and drinking small cups of coffee.

“Where have you been, it’s been a while,” Anwar’s aunt, Halima Atta, chided him as she held him in her arms. “Are you going to keep causing trouble?”

“I’m done, okay? I’m done,’ he replied.

“No, you have a beard now, you’re a man,” Halima joked.

The reunion had been in the making for years. Anwar was arrested in June 2021 for allegedly throwing stones at Israeli soldiers — an act of defiance sparked by an Israeli military offensive in Gaza a month earlier. Israeli authorities say he threw an “incendiary device.”

In the more than two years he spent awaiting trial, Anwar had come to accept that most of his early adulthood would be spent behind bars — a price he was willing to pay to defend his country, he said .

After the October 7 attack, which Israeli officials say killed an estimated 1,200 people, news of the Hamas hostage taking spread among the cells of Ofer prison, raising hopes that a prisoner release could follow. Prisoners clapped and cheered, shouted “God is great” and praised the armed resistance, Anwar recalled.

The weeks that followed, he said, were the toughest of his time in prison. Anwar, other recently released prisoners and a human rights group say prison officials were rationing water and electricity. They confiscated TVs and radios and banned family members from visiting, effectively creating an information blackout. And as prison officials stepped up their search for contraband, they forced inmates to kneel on the ground and beat them, released prisoners and rights groups said.

Israel’s Prison Service has said it has imposed stricter restrictions on prisons in recent weeks – including confiscating electronics, canceling family visits and conducting hundreds of searches – in connection with the war effort. Officials say prisoners can file complaints that are investigated by authorities.

Hundreds of new prisoners also poured into the prison — some of the more than 2,000 Palestinians arrested since Oct. 7 — sharing news of the war in hushed whispers, Anwar said. The prisoners devoured every bit of new information, both stunned by the massive destruction in Gaza and wondering whether the war could also bring them freedom.

Last week came the moment Anwar had been praying for.

Early Sunday morning, Mourad’s mother sat on the sagging couch in their living room, watching the news on TV and wondering if her son would be among those released. When she saw Mourad and Anwar’s faces flash across the screen as they waved from the prisoner bus, she jumped from her seat.

“We were screaming and jumping and crying – we couldn’t believe it,” said his mother, Amal Atta, 35.

Mourad was arrested after throwing stones at Israeli soldiers in August 2022, following a days-long military offensive by Israel in Gaza earlier that month, he said. Israeli authorities accused him of throwing an explosive. Like his cousin, he was never tried.

The return of the teenagers to the village is celebrated for days; young children run around their home devouring sweets, while older relatives have pulled Anwar and Mourad in for cuddles.

‘Why do you think he was in prison? It’s because of everything he’s seen here, everything he’s been exposed to – it made him want to go out and fight back,” Anwar’s uncle Omar Atta, 45, said among their relatives on Sunday evening.

As his relatives embraced nearby, Omar looked out over the hillside as a fresh breeze rattled the branches of the olive trees below. Since the start of the war, Israeli soldiers have built a new barricade blocking the only paved road to their village. Israeli security forces have raided homes in the village and arrested a dozen of his neighbors, he said. Frustration and anger have increased.

“Israel thinks they are suppressing or destroying the resistance,” Omar explained. ‘But look what they do. They just make it stronger.”

Rami Nazzal contributed reporting from Ramallah.