Prominent Palestinian political leader and activist Khalida Jarrar was among the dozens of prisoners released Sunday as part of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
Jarrar, a former lawmaker, is a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a secular, nationalist entity, dating back to the 1960s. It is the second-largest faction in the Palestine Liberation Organization after Fatah and calls for the liberation of all of historical Palestine.
The European Union, the United States and Israel designated the PFLP a terrorist organization after attacks on Israeli targets. Jarrar was not implicated in the attacks. The Israeli military acknowledged in 2021 that she “did not deal with organizational or military aspects of the organization,” according to the Associated Press.
Video from Reuters news agency on Sunday showed Jarrar inside a Red Cross bus transporting Palestinian prisoners out of Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank.
Later, photos showed Jarrar embracing family as she arrived in Ramallah early on Monday.
Jarrar has been arrested multiple times by Israel over her decades of activism. In 2015, she was sentenced to 15 months on charges of incitement and membership in the PFLP, according to the AP. But much of that time, Jarrar has been held in administrative detention, the AP reported, meaning she has not faced public charges or been put on trial.
