Palestinian Ex-Prisoner Hopes His Son Will Also Be Freed in Israel Swap

 Palestinians search for casualties at the site of Israeli strikes on a house in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip November 22, 2023. (Reuters)
Palestinians search for casualties at the site of Israeli strikes on a house in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip November 22, 2023. (Reuters)
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Palestinian Ex-Prisoner Hopes His Son Will Also Be Freed in Israel Swap

 Palestinians search for casualties at the site of Israeli strikes on a house in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip November 22, 2023. (Reuters)
Palestinians search for casualties at the site of Israeli strikes on a house in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip November 22, 2023. (Reuters)

For Yusif Abu Maria, the looming Gaza hostage deal is especially personal. Not only is his son on a list of candidates of imprisoned Palestinians to be freed by Israel: It would be a replay of Abu Maria's own release from jail almost 20 years ago.

The Qatari- and Egyptian-mediated agreement approved by Israel in the early hours of Wednesday will pause the war between Israel and Hamas militants for a few days, enabling the entry of more humanitarian aid to the ravaged Gaza Strip.

In the lull, Hamas will free 50 children and women who were among some 240 people taken to Gaza during its Oct. 7 killing spree in south Israel. In return, 150 female inmates or teenaged males will be released from Israeli security prisons.

A list of 300 candidate prisoners published by Israel's Justice Ministry includes Ubay Abu Maria, who was taken into custody this year, four months after his 18th birthday, and accused of belonging to the armed Islamic Jihad militant group.

The length of the list suggested Israel was preparing for the possible disqualification of some prisoners by its Supreme Court, where victims of Palestinian attacks can file challenges, or that future prisoner-for-hostage swaps were being prepared.

But Ubay's pining father sounded confident of a homecoming.

"Of course I'm very happy, because I've lived through this myself," said Yusif, who in 2004 was among 400 prisoners freed in return for an Israeli businessman and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers held by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

"Ubay will be in my arms, among my family, my brethren, his siblings, and in his mother's lap. We say that, God willing, all prisoners - not just Ubay, but also prisoners who have been in jail for 40 years, 30 years - should be released," he told Reuters, saluting their "great and brave resistance" to Israel.

Many Israelis see the Palestinian prisoners as dangerous foes whose freedom would raise risks of new and widespread violence.

Yusif, a member of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, said he had spent several stints in Israeli jails on charges of organizing a potential armed attack. He confirmed Ubay's association with the more hardline Islamic Jihad.

"It was at school where met some people from Islamic Jihad. It was his decision and I supported his decision. I didn't have any objection," Yusif said in the family home in the occupied West Bank.

Uday has an arm injury, his parents said, compounding their worry about conditions that have been toughened up in the prisons, where inmates have clashed with guards at times.

The Prisons Service has reported the death in custody of five inmates since Oct. 7, four of them from apparent health complications. The fifth case is under investigation, the Prisons Service said.

"I feel just like any mother who has a wounded son in jail would," said Yusif's wife, Fida. "We hear a different rumor or a genuine report every day, things that break our hearts. So of course I'm very happy. God willing this will be concluded well."



Greeks Mourn, Turks Celebrate Anniversary of Invasion that Split Cyprus

A woman walks next to the graves of soldiers killed in the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus at the Tymvos Makedonitissas military cemetery in Nicosia, Cyprus July 20, 2025. REUTERS/Yiannis Kourtoglou
A woman walks next to the graves of soldiers killed in the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus at the Tymvos Makedonitissas military cemetery in Nicosia, Cyprus July 20, 2025. REUTERS/Yiannis Kourtoglou
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Greeks Mourn, Turks Celebrate Anniversary of Invasion that Split Cyprus

A woman walks next to the graves of soldiers killed in the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus at the Tymvos Makedonitissas military cemetery in Nicosia, Cyprus July 20, 2025. REUTERS/Yiannis Kourtoglou
A woman walks next to the graves of soldiers killed in the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus at the Tymvos Makedonitissas military cemetery in Nicosia, Cyprus July 20, 2025. REUTERS/Yiannis Kourtoglou

Greek and Turkish Cypriots marked on Sunday the 51st anniversary of Türkiye’s 1974 invasion of Cyprus, an event that split the island and remains a source of tension between NATO partners Greece and Türkiye.

Air raid sirens sounded across the southern Greek Cypriot-populated parts of Cyprus at 5:30 a.m. (0230 GMT), the exact time when Turkish troops landed on the northern coast in a military intervention triggered by a brief Greece-inspired coup.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was due to attend celebrations in north Cyprus, a breakaway state recognized only by Ankara.

Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides attended a memorial service in the south to commemorate the more than 3,000 people who died in the Turkish invasion, which also drove tens of thousands of Greek Cypriots from their homes.

"Despite those who want us to forget, we will never forget, or yield an inch of land," Christodoulides said, calling celebrations in the north "shameful".

Efforts to reunify Cyprus as a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation have repeatedly failed amid deep-rooted mistrust and competing visions for the island's future.

Before the invasion, clashes between Turkish and Greek Cypriots saw Turkish Cypriots withdraw from a power-sharing government and prompted the deployment of UN peacekeepers in 1964.

Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar said the invasion had brought "peace and tranquility" to the island following the "darkest years" for Turkish Cypriots.

"Their (Greek Cypriots) goal was to destroy the Turkish Cypriots," he said in a video address posted on X.

The simmering conflict complicates Türkiye's ambitions to foster closer ties with the European Union, of which both Cyprus and Greece are members.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last week the two sides would continue discussions on trust-building measures, warning that "there is a long road ahead".