[News] After The Prisoner Exchange, over 11,000 Palestinian Hostages Will Remain

[Anti-Imperialist News]

palestinechronicle.com
<https://www.palestinechronicle.com/after-the-prisoner-exchange-over-11000-palestinian-hostages-will-remain/>
After The Prisoner Exchange, over 11,000 Palestinian Hostages Will
RemainOctober
9, 2025
------------------------------
10 prisoners from Gaza were released. (Photo: via social media)

*By Robert Inlakesh
<https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/robert-inlakesh>*

More Palestinian hostages have been killed than Israelis, yet there is
almost no coverage of this, as there is often no mention that the majority
of Israeli captives who died in Gaza were killed by Israeli bombings.

While people around the world hold their breath in anticipation of the
upcoming Gaza ceasefire and prisoner exchange, many commentators are
hailing the “return of all the hostages”. Such rhetoric is in and of itself
revealing of a double standard, whereby Palestinian hostages are not worth
the same as Israelis.

So far, there have been two prisoner exchanges during the Gaza genocide,
one in November of 2023 and the second earlier this month during the
ceasefire that Israel violated in March.

During the first exchange, a batch of 39 female and child prisoners was
released from Israeli detention. At the time, the Western corporate media
refused to refer to the minors released as child detainees, instead
referring to them as young people or, in some cases, teenagers. Yet, when
Israelis under the age of 18 were being freed, they were immediately
identified as children and covered obsessively.

Meanwhile, the abuses of Palestinian detainees were ignored almost
entirely. Also, it went unmentioned that Israel arrested over 310
Palestinians in the West Bank, as it freed 240 as part of the
truce-prisoner exchange. Not only did Israel violate the terms of this
agreement, delaying their release for hours, but it later re-arrested many
of those whom it had freed.

Similarly, when Hamas began releasing batches of Israeli captives for
Palestinian ones, the release of the Israeli detainees was, in many cases,
covered live. Predictably, displaying the same bias that was on show back
in November of 2023, the Palestinians released were barely mentioned. On
January 20, 2025, 90 female and child prisoners were released; again, the
Western corporate media refused to cover the event as it did the release of
a much smaller number of Israelis.

As of now, Palestine’s Wafa News states that the current data of
Palestinian prisoner groups confirm that over 11,100 Palestinians are
currently being held in the Israeli prison system, including 400 child
prisoners. Almost all of these are from the occupied West Bank alone. Also,
according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society, Israel has arrested around
20,000 Palestinians from the West Bank since October 7, 2023, including
students, scholars, journalists and medical workers.

As part of the Gaza ceasefire-prisoner exchange deal, 250 Palestinian
detainees with life sentences will be freed and some 1,700 Gazans who were
seized after October 7, 2023. These Palestinians from Gaza are not held in
official Israeli prisons, but in torture detention facilities where they
are subjected to round-the-clock torture and sexual violence at the hands
of soldiers. The number of Palestinians seized from Gaza in the last two
years is unknown, although the estimated figure is set at around 15,000 in
total.

The Western corporate media and governments constantly express their
concern over the potential abuses suffered by Israeli prisoners held in
Gaza, yet never mention the Palestinians who are held by Israel without
having committed any offense whatsoever.

Palestinian hostages have been subjected to gang rape, all kinds of sexual
violence, torture, the amputation of limbs, humiliation rituals,
starvation, the deprivation of water, and at least 78 Palestinian detainees
have been murdered while under Israeli detention since October 7, 2023.

This means that more Palestinian hostages have been killed than Israelis,
yet there is almost no coverage of this, as there is often no mention that
the majority of Israeli captives who died in Gaza were killed by Israeli
bombings.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of the Palestinian hostages will not be
returning to their families and will continue suffering under the brutal
conditions of torture and starvation. No doubt, when the prisoner exchange
occurs, if Israel chooses to honor it, then the Western corporate media
will again display its racist double standards in the coming week.

*(The Palestine Chronicle)*


*– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He
focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this
article to The Palestine Chronicle. *
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