Activist Ahed Tamimi is among the Palestinians released in the latest exchange.

Prominent Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi and more than two dozen other women and children were released from Israeli prisons early Thursday, Israeli and Palestinian authorities said, in the latest hostage exchange in Gaza.

The Israeli military arrested Ms. Tamimi, 22, in a pre-dawn raid on Nov. 6 on suspicion of inciting violence and calling for terrorist activities, but has not filed charges against her because of the nearly three weeks she was held captive in the Damon prison, near Haifa, Israel.

According to her lawyer, Mahmoud Hassan, Ms Tamimi was beaten during her arrest and after being transferred from the occupied West Bank to prison in Israel in violation of international law.

The military had moved on Sunday to detain Ms Tamimi under administrative detention, which would have allowed her to be held indefinitely without charge or trial. But her name later appeared on the Israeli government’s list of Palestinian prisoners and detainees approved for possible release in connection with the hostage crisis. Her father, longtime protest leader Bassem Tamimi, is also jailed without charge.

Ms Tamimi’s mother, Nariman Tamimi, said on Tuesday that her joy at the prospect of her daughter’s release was tempered by repeated threats of violence against the family by Israeli settlers and by the occupation forces, which have banned all festivities and fired tear gas to disperse masses of Palestinians waiting to be reunited with their loved ones and neighbors.

The sheer number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since the war began has also left an indelible mark, Nariman Tamimi said. Health authorities in Gaza have said more than 13,000 people have been killed in the enclave during the war, and thousands more are believed to be trapped under the rubble.

“She would come back after the death of 17,000 people. You understand?” said Nariman Tamimi. “My daughter would come back to my lap, but there are a thousand mothers who have lost their children and a thousand families who have died.”

“I wish all this bloodshed wasn’t necessary to release my daughter,” she added. “The reality is she should not have been in jail.”

Ms Tamimi’s arrest was one of thousands by the Israeli army since October 7 in a bloody crackdown on the occupied West Bank over what they say are counter-terrorism measures. The precise number of arrests there is disputed; the Israeli military has reported more than 2,000, but the Palestinian Authority Prisoner Affairs Committee reports nearly 3,300.

Israeli forces have also killed at least 225 Palestinians in the West Bank since the crackdown began, making 2023 the deadliest year for Palestinians there since 2005, according to the United Nations humanitarian agency.

A total of thirty Palestinians were released in Wednesday’s exchange, including more than a dozen children. Among them was Suhair al-Barghouti, a 64-year-old woman who was arrested during an October raid and placed in administrative detention, where she was denied access to medicine due to her health problems, the Palestinian Prisoners Society said. non-governmental rights group.

Ms al-Barghouti comes from a well-known family of Palestinian resistance figures. Her husband, Omar al-Barghouti, was one of the longest-serving Palestinian prisoners and spent about three decades behind bars before his death in 2021, much of it under administrative detention.

The couple’s sons also spent years in Israeli detention, and one, Saleh al-Barghouti, was shot dead by Israeli occupation forces in 2018 after being accused of opening fire on Israeli settlers. According to Wafa, the Palestinian Authority news agency, Israel bulldozed their family home near Ramallah in 2019.

Sara Aridi reporting contributed.