• Talks to resettle them underway, with Qatar, Turkiye and Malaysia also listed as potential destinations
• Freed in a deal, the ex-prisoners are stuck in a Cairo hotel, needing clearance to leave
• Complain of brutal Israeli prison conditions, detail denial of rights, beatings and humiliation

CAIRO: Pakistan is among the nations being considered as a resettlement destination for Palestinian prisoners exiled in Egypt, alongside Qatar, Turkiye and Malaysia, said Hasan Abd Rabbo, of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, hinting potential destinations for the exiled men facing continued uncertainty.

Since a US-brokered ceasefire took hold on Oct 10, Hamas has freed all 20 surviving Israeli hostages in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

While many of these prisoners returned to Gaza and the West Bank, the group of 154 Palestinian ex-prisoners was exiled, put on buses and sent to Egypt, where authorities have put them in a five-star hotel that they cannot leave without clearance.

Egypt has formal ties with Israel and played a key mediation role in the exchange. During previous truces in the war, thousands of other Palestinian prisoners were released in similar exchanges.

It first received 150 of these prisoners in January, and more than eight months later, most remain confined to the same hotel with their fates undecided.

The men currently in Cairo had all been sentenced by Israeli military courts to life in prison on the charges of murders and membership in resistance groups, however, UN experts have multiple times criticised these judgements as part of decades of unjust trials for Palestinians in the occupied territory.

International rights groups have also been critical of Israeli courts. They argue that these courts serve as tools of occupation and fail to provide Palestinians with the fundamental guarantees of a fair trial.

Uncertainty

Now in Cairo, the men face new challenges. They have no freedom of movement, no work permits and no clear understanding of what comes next. The Egyptian government has not issued any formal statement regarding their legal status.

“No Arab country wanted to take us in,” said Murad Abu al-Rub, 45, who was accused for the killing of four Israeli soldiers in 2006 during an operation by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, a movement linked to the Palestinian Authority.

In the hotel corridors, the men spend hours on the phone speaking to relatives they have not seen in decades.

“We were separated from our families for 20 years,” Abu al-Rub told AFP. He noted that he now lives in uncertainty, far from the Palestinian city of Jenin where he was born.

“Nothing has changed. I still can’t see my mother or my siblings,” Abu al-Rub said. “When I was arrested, my little sister was 15. I didn’t recognise her when I saw her on a video call.”

Over his 19 years in custody, Abu al-Rub said he was shuffled through eight different Israeli prisons, never staying more than a few months in each.

Inmates described harsh conditions in Israeli custody. Kamil Abu Hanish, who endured 22 years in Israeli prisons for murder and accused of his affiliation with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), described his final hours in custody as some of the most harrowing.

“Dozens of prisoners were tied together with ropes. They blindfolded us and forced us to kneel. Then they made us lie face down with our hands bound,” Abu Hanish said.

He said his release felt “like moving between two worlds... from a world of shackles and locked doors to a world of freedom and open space.”

Before the war escalated, prisoners had managed to secure some basic privileges, such as studying, playing sports, and attending daily discussion groups.

“We played volleyball and table tennis and held three educational sessions a day,” Abu al-Rub said. After the escalation, those conditions changed drastically.

“We had no rights left — even the simplest,” Abu al-Rub said, adding that items such as pens, paper, films, TV and newspapers were banned. “Everything we had, including clothing and blankets, was confiscated. We were left sleeping on iron beds” during the winter.

Mahmoud al-Ardah, 50, who was jailed on accusations of murder and belonging to the Islamic Jihad organisation, said the last two years were his worst in custody.

“Daily beatings and humiliation,” al-Ardah said. “In the last two years, I suffered more than in the previous 30.”

In 2021, al-Ardah was one of six inmates who escaped Israel’s Gilboa prison by digging a tunnel with spoons and improvised tools before being rearrested and placed in solitary confinement.

Numerous Palestinian, Israeli, and international rights groups have documented similar claims of systematic mistreatment and torture inside Israel’s prison system. The Israeli occupation authorities routinely deny such violations, stating their prison service operates in accordance with the law.

According to the Palestinian Authority, nearly 11,000 Palestinians remain in Israeli custody on charges related to the conflict.

As talks over their potential resettlement in countries like Pakistan continue, Abd Rabbo noted that the men remain in Egypt with their accommodation costs covered by Qatar.

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2025