The outlines of the first phase of the US-developed plan to end the war in Gaza are becoming clearer. The Israeli Ministry of Justice has published the complete list of 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life or very long prison terms who will be released under the agreement. In exchange for the release of 20 live hostages, Israel will also return to Gaza 1,700 prisoners arrested after October 7—including 22 minors not involved in the massacre—and will transfer the bodies of 360 terrorists to the Strip. The publication of the list, media reports point out, has been delayed due to disagreements over some names.

Ministers approved changes, and eleven names were added at the last minute. Among the prisoners sentenced to life in prison and considered symbols of terror, Israel will not release Marwan and Abdallah Barghouti, former Fatah leaders and central figures in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, representing different aspects of the fight against Israeli occupation: Marwan as a political leader and Abdullah as a military figure. Abbas al-Sayyid and Ahmad Saadat, former secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, will also remain in prison. The bodies of Yahya and Mohammad Sinwar, former Hamas leaders, will not be returned, and the members of Hamas's Nukhba involved in the October 7 massacre will not be freed. Also not included are Hakim Awad, the Fogel family killer in 2011, who was sentenced to five life sentences, and Mahmoud Atallah, implicated in the sexually exploited prison guards case. Furthermore, there will be no releases to the West Bank: only to the Gaza Strip or expulsions abroad: negotiations are already underway with several states, and according to estimates, Turkey and Qatar will receive the majority of those released.

Among the terrorists added to the list at the last minute are: Mohammad Abu Tbaikh, of the Jenin Islamic Jihad, responsible for one of the bloodiest attacks of the second Intifada: the suicide bombing at the Megiddo crossroads on June 5, 2002, in which 17 people were killed and 43 were injured; Ibrahim Alikam, involved in the murder of Ita Tzur and her 12-year-old son Efraim in December 1996 near Beit El; Maher al-Hashlamon, a terrorist of the Hebron Jihad, responsible for the November 2014 knife attack in Alon Shvut, in which Dalia Lamkus was killed and two people were injured; Hussein Rawadra, who stabbed to death 19-year-old soldier Eden Atias at Afula Central Station in November 2013; Ayyham Kamamji, from a village near Jenin, sentenced to two life sentences for the kidnapping and killing of Eliyahu Asheri in Ramallah, was among six who escaped from Gilboa prison in 2021; Riyad al-Amour, convicted of the deaths of nine Israelis, including officer Yehuda Edri, and three Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel; Rami Mohammad Mahmoud, responsible for the killing of 21-year-old policewoman Galit Arviv in an attack in the Neve Yaakov neighborhood of Jerusalem during the second Intifada; Tariq Adnan, murderer of Aharon Avdian, killed in 2001 while shopping