High Court rejects bereaved families’ petition against release of terrorists
Justices find no cause to interfere in hostage deal that will free ‘despicable’ murderers, turn back request by prison guards for terrorist who assaulted them to be deported

The High Court of Justice on Saturday rejected a petition filed by an organization representing victims of terror against the implementation of the hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas that would include setting free Palestinian prisoners who murdered their loved ones.
“This is one of those cases when it is clear that the reach of the court is short,” the justices said. “Our hearts are with the families of those who are not yet coming back [in stage one of the deal], as well as those who must suffer seeing their dear ones’ murderers leaving prison.”
While some families of terror victims spoke out against the ceasefire deal, others said they were prepared to bear the pain of seeing the terrorists who killed their relatives freed if it meant that the hostages held in Gaza were released.
The court petition, submitted by the Choose Life Forum, demanded that Israel prevent the release of Palestinian security prisoners — a key part of the agreed-upon deal — and failing this, it insisted that the IDF be obligated to inform victims of terror if their or their loved one’s attacker was slated for release from prison as part of the freshly inked deal.
Finally, the petition called for full transparency regarding the security prisoners released as part of the deal, and argued that “the length of the sentence, full details of the attack in which they participated, and the names of the murdered and injured” be made publicly available.
“The bereaved families, who have had to endure the terrible pain of losing their loved ones, are now facing another trauma — the release of their loved ones’ murderers,” the Ynet outlet cited the petition as stating. “Receiving the news of the terrorist’s release through the media, without any prior preparation and without emotional support, constitutes further harm to the families who have already been severely harmed.”

The State Attorney’s Office informed the High Court of Justice on Saturday night that it opposed the petition.
In the opinion filed to the High Court, the State Attorney’s office said that the claims made in the petition “do not justify judicial intervention in the government’s decisions” regarding the way it releases information about the Palestinian security prisoners to be released in the upcoming deal.
Furthermore, it noted, that the military does already inform victims of terror if their attackers are expected to be released in exchange for the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
The state said it was also rejecting the petition as the government had voted to implement the deal.
The court was expected to not interfere with decisions regarding the release of the hostages, just as it did not do so during the run-up to an earlier, weeklong, truce and hostage release deal in November 2023.
Nevertheless, the opinion noted “the petitioners’ great pain over the outline the government decided on for the release of the hostages, which also includes the release of despicable terrorists.”
Also Sunday, the High Court rejected a petition asking for a terrorist who sexually assaulted prison guards to be deported if he is released as part of the hostage-ceasefire deal.
The petitioners had said that any potential danger to them had not been considered when Mahmoud Attallah was named for release.
Former guards at Gilboa Prison said that Atallah sexually harassed and assaulted them on multiple occasions, with one woman saying she had been repeatedly raped. An intelligence officer at the prison allegedly “pimped” female guards to Atallah and other Palestinian inmates, at his request.
The Kan public broadcaster reported on Saturday that the list of terrorists to be freed was drawn up over months as the ceasefire negotiations were going on, by the prison service and the Shin Bet security service. Officials took into consideration their crimes, the future security threat they posed, their age, health, and leadership role among other prisoners, and how symbolic they were in Palestinian society.
There were further deliberations over which prisoners would be expelled to live abroad and which would be permitted to stay in East Jerusalem or the West Bank. Israel insisted that those convicted of serious terror attacks must be deported, as well as those who were involved in the manufacture of weapons. Those permitted to stay are prisoners who the Shin Bet says it can keep track of and whose potential future terror activity the security agency believes it can thwart, the report said.
Officials informed bereaved families on Saturday night of the terrorists slated for release who killed their relatives.
‘Never-ending pain’
“My wife’s parents received a phone call this evening – their son’s murderer will be released,” Likud MK Avichai Boaron wrote on social media platform X. “A never-ending pain.”
Eitan Fuld was told that the terrorist who murdered his brother Ari in 2018 would be released.
“The release of Ari’s murderer hurts,” he said in a statement. “My big problem and for all of us is that of the coming victims and the next families that to our regret will join the bereaved families due to this bad deal.”

Also among those to be released are those who sent the terrorists who killed Dvir Sorek in 2019. His father Yoav told Ynet that he sees the signed deal as a “horrifying and immoral surrender.”
Shai Schmerling, whose father Reuven, 70, was murdered in a 2017 terror attack, told Ynet that he does not oppose the release to Gaza of the killer, Yusef Khaled Mustafa Kamil, if it means the freedom for the hostages.
Tsofia Palzan-Dickstein, whose parents Ya’akov and Hannah and brother Shuv-el were murdered in a terror attack in 2002, said the news of the release of the terrorist who carried out the attack “was like a knife straight to the heart,” Ynet reported.
Another of the prisoners set to be released is notorious Fatah terrorist Zakaria Zubeidi, the former Jenin commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades. Zubeidi was arrested in 2019 for his part in shootings near Beit El in the West Bank. He is thought to have been involved in numerous terror attacks, including a bombing that killed six people at the Beit She’an office of the Likud party in 2002, at the height of the 2000-2005 Second Intifada.
In September 2021, he and five Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists broke out of the Gilboa Prison in northern Israel. They were re-apprehended days later.

The attack on the Likud branch killed Ohad Avitan. His daughter, Oshrat Barel, told Ynet “the heart squeezes, the stomach turns — and along with that, it is the right thing to do. This is the heavy and correct price to pay for the release of the hostages. If I could, I would open the prison gates with my own hands, release them and spit in their faces, in order to bring the hostages back home.”
The ceasefire-hostage release agreement, signed in Doha early Friday and ratified by Israel early Saturday, states that Hamas is required to provide the names of the hostages at least 24 hours ahead of their release.
The first three hostages to be released on Sunday will be civilian women from the list of 33 hostages to be freed in the 42-day first phase of the Israel-Hamas deal. They were named Sunday morning as Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbreacher.
The Palestinian prisoners to be freed in exchange for the three hostages will not be released before the first hostages are expected back in Israel. Some 95 prisoners are to be released in exchange for the three Israeli women.
In exchange for all 33 hostages, Israel will, by the end of phase one, hand over up to 1,904 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, including several serving multiple life sentences for deadly terror attacks and murders.