Israeli authorities released an additional 200 Palestinians from imprisonment on Saturday, the second wave to be freed in exchange for Israeli hostages as part of a January ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.

Under the terms of the deal, brokered after 15 months of war, Hamas will incrementally release 33 living Israeli hostages from captivity in Gaza over 42 days, the first of the deal’s three stages. In return, Israel has committed to releasing hundreds of imprisoned Palestinians.

So far, 290 Palestinian prisoners and seven Israeli hostages have been released in total.

The majority of those Israel said it would release were detained after Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7, 2023. Some of them have been serving life sentences in Israeli prisons on charges of murder or other violent crimes. Others have been imprisoned without charge.

The initial wave of Palestinians included children, teens and women. Israel has described them as agitators or terrorists, claiming they pose a threat to national security.

According to Samidoun, an activist network supporting Palestinian prisoners, the group includes journalists, activists, teachers, students and the close relatives of high-profile Hamas figures. These are some of them. Khalida Jarrar, 61

Longtime political activist Khalida Jarrar, 61 - a lawyer and former legislator - was among the first prisoners to be released in the swap.

A vocal advocate for the rights of prisoners who has herself been in and out of Israeli prison for years, Jarrar is also a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a small leftist armed group.

According to Israeli prison records, Jarrar had been held in administrative detention without charge since her arrest in December 2023. Israeli officials accused her of supporting terrorism.

Jarrar was for years the director of Addameer, a Ramallah-based human rights group. She also helmed the Palestinian Legislative Council’s committee for prisoners’ rights.

Photographs early Monday showed her embracing her husband after emerging from the Israeli military prison Ofer. In an interview after her release with the Anadolu news agency, Jarrar said she spent six months in isolation. “We were subjected to extreme harshness and physical assault in a deliberate and intentional attempt to humiliate and demean us,” she said. In a statement, the Israel Prison Service said that all prisoners were “detained according to the law” and that it was not aware any incidents of torture or violence had “occurred under IPS responsibility.”

In 2017, after a previous period of detention, Jarrar told The Washington Post in an interview that she was targeted by authorities for her political beliefs. “I was arrested for speaking out against the occupation,” she said.

According to Al Jazeera, she was rearrested later that year and held for 20 months for her connections to the PFLP, and again for nearly two years beginning in 2019. In 2021, Israeli media reported that she was later convicted of holding office in the PFLP.

Rula Hassaneen, 30

Rula Hassaneen is a freelance reporter who has written for Al Jazeera and local Palestinian outlets.

According to her Israeli prison record, she was serving an 11-month sentence after her arrest in March. Her release - among the first of the deal - ended a painful period of separation from her infant daughter, her family said.

“Rula would cry at nights thinking of her daughter. Her time in jail was a very challenging time for all of us,” her 33-year-old sister Hadeel said in a phone interview Thursday.

An Israeli military judge convicted Hassaneen on charges of incitement and support for terrorism, according to her prison record. Hassaneen’s imprisonment gained global attention and prompted calls for her release among advocates of free speech. In May, the Committee to Protect Journalists condemned her trial by a military court and called for her release on humanitarian grounds. According to the CPJ, court documents cited her social media posts expressing her views on the situation in Gaza and the West Bank.

In addition, CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna said Israel should allow her to defend “the charges against her in a civilian court, rather than a military one, which is not an appropriate avenue for addressing concerns over a journalist’s social media posts.”

Early Monday, Hassaneen tearfully embraced her infant daughter, whose hair was adorned with white ribbons, shortly after her release from prison. “She is very happy that she gained her freedom and embraced her daughter and her family again. She is trying to erase the memories of prison,” Hadeel Hassaneen said. Shatha Jarabaa, 24

Jarabaa was arrested in August on charges of incitement on social media, along with a brother, said her father, Nawaf, in an interview with The Post as he waited for her release this week. Another son was detained a year ago, he said.

Nawaf Jarabaa said his children were expressing their anger at Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war on Facebook. “I am happy but only a little bit,” he said of her release, because of the continued imprisonment of his sons.

The family lives in the village of Beitin, outside Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. “Before Oct. 7, the settlers in the West Bank were attacking the residents and their land, there were many checkpoints, and movement was hard,” Jarabaa said. “If there was no occupation, there would be no problems, no war, no terrorism.”

He and 10 relatives waited in the cold for hours. Shortly before 2 a.m., cheers erupted and fireworks went off as two buses of released prisoners reached the square crowded with families.

Shatha shrieked with joy as she embraced her father in a long hug, and his eyes filled with tears. She was quickly taken to reunite with her mother, who was waiting at home.

previous coverage

• Hamas frees 4 female Israeli soldiers in exchange for 200 Palestinian prisoners as ceasefire holds