Inside story'On a national level, it’s not a good deal'

Convicted terrorists to be released are ‘an open wound’ for victims’ families

While many support any effort to bring home live hostages, some bereaved family members call for a terrorist death penalty in order to halt the cycle of hostage release deals

Gavriel Fiske is a reporter at The Times of Israel

Paramedics and police at the scene of a Palestinian suicide-bombing that killed 19 and injuring 74 on a bus in Jerusalem, June 18, 2002. (Flash90/File)
Paramedics and police at the scene of a Palestinian suicide-bombing that killed 19 and injuring 74 on a bus in Jerusalem, June 18, 2002. (Flash90/File)

On the evening of Friday, December 27, 2002, during the height of the Second Intifada, two terrorists from Palestinian Islamic Jihad snuck into the Otniel yeshiva in the southern West Bank.

Disguised as Israeli soldiers, they opened fire in the kitchen, killing two students and two IDF soldiers on leave who were preparing to serve the Shabbat meal. The two terrorists were killed the same evening, one in the ensuing firefight and the other after a short manhunt. The organizers of the assault were later arrested and sentenced on terror charges.

One of these organizers was released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit hostage exchange, and the other is now slated to be released as part of the first phase of Israel’s ceasefire and hostage/prisoner swap agreement with Hamas, which went into effect Sunday.

“At least, this time, he’s been in prison for 22 years,” said Elaine Hoter, mother of Gavriel Hoter, one of the students killed in Otniel in 2002. He was 17 at the time.

The ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas includes in its first stage the phased release of 33 Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip, in exchange for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

The majority of Palestinians to be released during the first phase are Gazans detained during the IDF’s ground offensive in Gaza who did not participate in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, invasion and massacre in southern Israel.

Israeli police stand near the Otniel Junction in the southern West Bank on November 13, 2015. (Yonatan SIndel/Flash90)

However, among the Palestinians slated to go free during the 42-day first phase of the deal are 737 security prisoners, some of whom are members of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad or Fatah serving life sentences for murder and terror attacks.

The imminent release of a large number of convicted terrorists in exchange for a much smaller number of Israeli hostages has caused much soul-searching in Israeli society, especially among the bereaved families who lost loved ones at the hands of those who are now to be released from prison.

Gilad Shalit salutes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after landing at an IDF airbase in central Israel on October 18, 2011, after he was freed from more than five years in Hamas captivity in Gaza. (Israel Defense Forces)

The Gilad Shalit deal, which looms large in discussions on the current agreement, was hailed as a great victory by Hamas; to secure the release of the abducted IDF soldier, Israel freed 1,027 prisoners including the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who went on to mastermind the October 7, 2023, attack. Some of the prisoners to be set free in the current ceasefire agreement are among those released in that deal 13 years ago and later rearrested for terror activities.

Officials informed bereaved families on Saturday night of the terrorists slated for release who killed their relatives.

Gavriel Hoter, in an undated photo. (courtesy Hoter family)

“I am ecstatically happy that some hostages are able to come back, even though we don’t know their conditions mentally and physically,” Hoter said, speaking to The Times of Israel on Sunday.

The Hebrew anniversary of the Otniel attack is on Thursday, “so it’s all come at the same time, the same week of remembering,” Hoter said.

Hoter, an academic who after her son’s murder went on to found the TEC Center, an organization dedicated to bridging cultural divisions in Israeli society through technology education, stressed that “hatred doesn’t solve anything” and said most Arabs are “normal, good people who want a better world for themselves and their children… we shouldn’t let the horrible people win.”

Renewed calls for the death penalty

Businessman and anti-terror activist Micah Avni on Sunday called for Israel to institute the death penalty for terror as a deterrent to further hostage/prisoner deals.

The current agreement is signed and moving forward, so “it doesn’t matter what I or anyone thinks, it’s done. On a personal level, I very much understand doing anything to get somebody back, but on a national level, it’s not a good deal. It’s very clear that the majority of terrorists released go back to doing terror,” he said.

Avni, whose father was killed by Hamas operatives in a Jerusalem terror attack in 2015, subsequently led a successful campaign to have major social media platforms ban activities by designated terror organizations.

The real question now is, “How we can prevent this from happening again?” he said.

“The very clear thing that comes out of it, which I have been pushing, is the death penalty for terrorists,” Avni said. His recent social media posts on the subject have received hundreds of thousands of views and thousands of comments from across the political spectrum overwhelmingly in support, he said.

The moment Israel institutes the death penalty for terror, “there would be less incentive to kidnap Israelis,” and instead of spending money on keeping “Hamas murderers incarcerated in amazing conditions, we could be spending that on helping victims’ families or bettering the education system,” Avni said.

Micah Avni (Courtesy)

As things are now, “my father’s murderer… he showed no remorse, he was proud of what he did. He’ll probably go back to terror” now that he is going to be released, he added.

On Sunday, some families took to social media to express support for the idea.

“Getting our hostages out is obviously a major priority, but by releasing Palestinian murderers aren’t we just encouraging them to take more hostages in the future?” asked Facebook user Shimon Palmer in a widely shared post.

Palmer’s brother and nephew were killed in 2011 when their vehicle crashed after being assaulted by Palestinian rock throwers on a road near Kiryat Arba, in the West Bank.

“I think the policy of keeping convicted terrorists in our prisons, at our expense, for decades sometimes, and then releasing them when our enemies are lucky enough to grab some hostages, is deeply mistaken,” Palmer said, calling for the death penalty for convicted terrorists.

Adolf Eichmann standing in his glass cage, flanked by guards, in the Jerusalem courtroom during his trial in 1961 for war crimes committed during World War II. (AP Photo/File)

Israel has only handed out a death sentence twice, most famously in 1962 against captured Nazi Adolf Eichmann on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. (In 1948, IDF officer Meir Tobianski was falsely accused of treason and killed by firing squad after a “drumhead court-martial” the same day of his arrest.) In 1988, former Nazi guard John Demjanjuk was sentenced by Israel to death for war crimes and crimes against humanity, but the sentence was overturned a few years later on appeal.

The current Israeli law, in place since the 1950s, does not allow the death sentence for civilian crimes of murder and terror — only for crimes against humanity and treason.

Second Intifada victims retraumatized

For Sarri Singer, a terror bombing survivor currently based in New York, the new deal to release Palestinian terrorists brings back old and difficult memories, although she supports the agreement.

“I feel that this deal must happen and all the hostages need to get home as quickly as possible, in whatever possible way that has to happen,” she said to The Times of Israel.

A wounded young girl is evacuated from the scene after a suicide bomber blew himself up on bus number 14 on Jaffa Street in downtown Jerusalem, on Wednesday, June 11, 2003. The bomber killed at least 13 bystanders, including himself, and wounded at least 40. (Flash90)

Singer was in a Jerusalem bus bombing on June 11, 2003. “Seventeen people were murdered in my attack, including everyone seated and standing around me, and over 100 were injured,” she said.

Three of the planners of that attack are now due to be released, although the actual perpetrator, “just an 18-year-old kid radicalized by Hamas,” killed himself in the suicide bombing, she said.

“The most important thing is to see the families reunited with their loved ones,” she said.

In 2012 Singer founded a nonprofit, Strength to Strength, which aims to provide “long-term mental health and peer-to-peer support” to terror victims and bereaved families and operates in 16 countries. Singer said a Sunday morning chat on a WhatsApp group with international victims of terror from around the world was “unbelievable.”

“We have victims from Northern Ireland, the UK, Spain, France, Argentina, Uganda, from 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing… These people are checking in on us, and they understand. That’s very comforting,” she said.

Israelis watch the release of three hostages from Hamas captivity as part of a deal between Israel and Hamas, at hostage square in Tel Aviv, on January 19, 2025. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

The ceasefire deal and prisoner/hostage exchange affects thousands of families who were affected by the Second Intifada, not just the victims of October 7, she stressed.

“It affects all of us who have experienced long-term trauma and manipulation by Hamas. It’s another trauma layer on top of it… It impacts so many,” Singer said.

Moving on, moving forward

The ceasefire deal is “uncharted territory, there isn’t a guide on how a family is supposed to feel,” said Hillel Fuld, a prominent blogger and Israeli tech advocate, speaking to The Times of Israel on Sunday. Fuld’s brother Ari was killed in a 2018 terror stabbing in the West Bank.

The release of his brother’s murderer “brings it back… it’s definitely an open wound,” Fuld said.

The son of Ari Fuld places his hands on his father’s body at his funeral in Kfar Etzion on September 17, 2018. (Gershon Elinson/FLASH90)

When asked if he supported the deal, Fuld said, “It’s not black and white like people like to paint it. I’m grateful I am not a politician and don’t have to make this call. The prisoners being released are monsters, so it’s a mixed bag of emotions… maybe we don’t have a choice at this point.”

However, his late brother “would have been very much against the deal, no question about it,” Fuld said. “He didn’t believe in negotiating with Hamas.”

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

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