Kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught on Israel, 50 hostages—22 of whom the Israeli government believes to be alive—have remained in Hamas captivity for close to two years.
Israel’s policy is that no hostage, dead or alive, gets left behind. This policy often forces Israel’s government to make any deal possible in exchange for freeing hostages from the hands of the genocidal terrorists.
In response to terrorist demands during hostage negotiations, Israel is often required, among other concessions, to release convicted terrorists, many of whom are serving long prison sentences.
Some of these individuals have been sentenced to multiple life terms for their involvement in planning and carrying out numerous terror attacks.
The released terrorists are not reformed or rehabilitated by the sentences they served. Rather, most of them return to terror. During discussions of the Israeli Cabinet before the last deal, the head of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) noted that, of the 1,027 terrorists released in the 2011 deal to secure the release of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, 82% returned to terror.
Included in this statistic was Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the Oct. 7 massacres.
In the tumult and drive to secure the release of the hostages, there is much discussion around the number of terrorists Israel would be forced to release. The “dry” numbers conceal not only the identities of the terrorists and the heinous acts for which they were arrested, convicted and punished, but also the identity of their victims.
To expose the truth, the following are just some of the terrorists—mass murderers—that Hamas is demanding Israel release, providing a focus, where it was possible and where relevant, on the victims who held U.S. citizenship:
Abdallah Barghouti: A former commander of Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades, Barghouti developed weapons and taught explosive making. Barghouti was convicted of manufacturing the explosives used in a series of suicide attacks and bombings from 2001 to 2003. He was responsible for the murder of 66 people and the injury of over 500 more.
Among his other attacks, Barghouti orchestrated the Aug. 9, 2001, suicide attack in the Sbarro Pizzeria at the corner of King George Street and Jaffa Road in Jerusalem, which took the lives of 16 individuals, including U.S. citizens Judith L. Greenbaum, 31, and Malka Roth, 15.
In December of the same year, he orchestrated a bombing on Ben-Yehuda Street, Jerusalem, which claimed the lives of U.S. citizens Ziv Brill, 17; Temima Spetner, 19; Jason Kirshenbaum, 18; Israel Hirschfield, 18; and Joseph Leifer, 29.
Barghouti also built the bomb that exploded in the main cafeteria of the Hebrew University’s Mount Scopus campus in Jerusalem in July 2002. The murdered victims included five U.S. citizens: Janis Ruth Coulter, 36; Marla Bennet, 24; David Gritz (also a French citizen), 24; Benjamin Blutstein, 25; and Dina Carter, 37.
Bahij Badr: Badr, who is serving 18 life sentences, built the explosive belts used in the 2003 suicide attacks at the Tzrifin junction and at Café Hillel in Jerusalem, where U.S. citizens Dr. David Applebaum, 51, and his daughter Nava, 20, were murdered.
Hassan Salameh: Salameh confessed and was convicted for his part in organizing and manufacturing the explosives for the bombings of two Israeli buses in 1996. In the attacks, 44 people were murdered and 59 others were injured.
In the Feb. 25, 1996, bombing of the No. 18 bus near the Jerusalem Central Bus Station, three U.S. citizens were murdered: Sara Duker, 23; Matthew Eisenfeld, 25; and Ira Weinstein, 53. Serving 48 life sentences, Salameh held the record for many years for the most life sentences ever handed down by an Israeli court.
Muhammad Arman: Arman is a Hamas recruiter and explosives engineer who, together with others, built the bombs and suicide vests used in attacks that murdered 34 people and injured 187 others.
Arman’s attacks included the March 2002 bombing of Café Moment in Jerusalem (11 murdered and 58 injured), the May 2002 attack on a club in Rishon Letzion (16 murdered and 45 injured) and the Hebrew University bombing (nine murdered and 84 injured).
Ibrahim Hamed: Convicted of murdering 46 people, Hamed is serving 45 life sentences for deploying suicide bombers as a Hamas “military” commander from 2001 to 2003. He is attributed with orchestrating the Café Hillel suicide bombing and with helping to plan the Hebrew University massacre.
Abbas al-Sayed: Hamas terrorist mastermind al-Sayed confessed to orchestrating the March 2001 bombing in Netanya (three murdered and 55 injured), the May 2001 Sharon Mall bombing (five murdered and 74 injured) and the March 27, 2002 Park Hotel Passover seder suicide bombing in Netanya (29 murdered and 64 injured), which resulted in the death of U.S. citizen Hannah Rogen, 90.
Al-Sayed was convicted in 2006 and sentenced to 35 consecutive life sentences.
Muhannad Shreim: Shreim participated in the planning and execution of the Park Hotel suicide bombing. He confessed to preparing and dispatching the suicide bomber, Abbas Odeh, and was sentenced to 29 life sentences.
Raed Khotari: Khotari recruited suicide bombers for multiple attacks, including one in Neve Yamin in March 2001, in which two teenagers were killed and 83 were injured, and for the Dolphinarium nightclub bombing in June 2001, in which 21 people were murdered and another 83 were injured. His victims include U.S. citizen Netanel Herskovitz, 15.
Khotari is serving a life sentence for the murder of 23 people.
Jamal Abu al-Hija: Al-Hija was directly involved in the explosion of a car bomb in November 2000 in Hadera (two murdered and 64 injured) and the Miron Junction bombing in August 2002 (nine murdered and 48 injured). He was also indirectly involved in the Sbarro bombing.
Al-Hija is serving nine life sentences and an additional 20 years.
Mua’at Balal: Balal was directly involved in the July 1997 double suicide bombing in the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem, which left 16 dead and 178 injured, and the September 1997 triple suicide bombing on the capital’s Ben-Yehuda pedestrian thoroughfare, which murdered eight civilians and injured 200.
Among those murdered in the Ben-Yehuda bombing was U.S. citizen Yael Botwin, 14.
Husam Kawasme: Kawasme organized, coordinated and funded the 2014 Hamas kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens: Eyal Yifrach, 19; Gilad Shaer, 16; and U.S. citizen Naftali Fraenkel, 16, which eventually triggered the 2014 Gaza war “Operation Protective Edge.”
Marwan Barghouti: A member of Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, Barghouti initiated and commanded the terror war initiated by the P.A. in September 2000, the Second Intifada.
While he bore the moral responsibility for hundreds of deaths, Barghouti was convicted for the murder of five people: Greek Orthodox monk Tsibouktsakis Germanus, 35; Yoela Hen, 45; Eli Dahan, 53; Yosef Habi, 52; and police officer Sgt. Maj. Salim Barakat, 32.
Bargaining with blood
The terrorists named above are just a small sample of over 250 terrorist murderers who are being held by Israel.
Cumulatively, they are responsible for the murder of over 1,000 people.
Alongside the demand to release the terrorists already convicted, Hamas is also demanding the release of the terrorists who participated in the Oct. 7 massacre and were arrested at the scenes of their atrocities or thereafter.
While freeing the remaining hostages from captivity in the hands of genocidal terrorists is, of course, a sensitive issue, releasing any of these terrorists is guaranteed to have dire consequences not only for citizens of Israel, but the international community as well.
Statistically, many of them will immediately return to terror upon release from prison and will murder again. Every time Israel agrees to release these ticking bombs, the terrorists are emboldened and Israel is weakened.
Originally published by Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.
