Israel-Hamas Gaza ceasefire nears: Live updates

Here are several of the most prominent Palestinian prisoners to be released during the ceasefire, according to the Israeli Justice Ministry.

Zakaria Zubeidi

Over the past two decades, Zakaria Zubeidi, 49, has been a militant, a theater director and an escaped prisoner whose escape stunned Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Mr. Zubeidi rose to prominence as a militant leader during the second intifada, or uprising, in the early 2000s, in which Palestinian militants carried out deadly attacks against Israelis, including suicide bombings targeting civilian highways.

Israel responded by reoccupying major Palestinian cities amid street fighting. Some of the fiercest fighting took place in the Palestinian city of Jenin, Mr. Zubeidi’s hometown. He later emerged as the commander-in-chief of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed militia loosely associated with the secular Fatah party, the dominant Palestinian political faction in the West Bank.

After the uprising, Mr. Zubeidi on one theater inside the tough Jenin refugee camp. In 2019, Israel arrested him again on charges that he had returned to militancy.

Two years later, Mr. Zubeidi and five other Palestinian prisoners carried out a jailbreak by crawling nearly 32 yards through an underground tunnel outside one of Israel’s maximum security prisons. Although they were later recaptured, the security breach shocked Israelis and excited Palestinians.

An Israeli drone strike killed Mr. Zubeidi’s son, Mohammad, in September. The Israeli military called the son a “significant terrorist” and said he had been involved in shooting at Israeli troops.

Wissam Abbasi, Mohammad Odeh and Wael Qassim

Wissam Abbasi, 48, Mohammad Odeh, 52, and Wael Qassim, 54, were jailed in 2002 on charges of carrying out Hamas attacks against Israelis during the second intifada. According to Israel’s Ministry of Justice, the three men received life sentences for murder and a number of other crimes.

According to contemporary Israeli media, the men were among several convicted of being involved in a Hamas cell in Jerusalem who was responsible for a series of bombings that killed over 30 Israelis in crowded civilian areas.

The attacks included a Hamas bomb at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that killed nine peopleincluding four American citizens, according to Israeli authorities.

Mr. Odeh, who worked as a painter at the university, planted the bomb in a cafeteria and covered it with a newspaper, The New York Times reported at the time, citing Israeli officials. As he left, he detonated the explosives remotely with a cell phone, the officials said.

Under the ceasefire agreement, the men will not be allowed to return to their homes in Jerusalem, according to the Israeli Ministry of Justice. They will be ordered to live in exile, although it is unclear where they will be allowed to go.

Khalida Jarrar

One of the most prominent Palestinian prisoners expected to be released as early as Sunday is Khalida Jarrar, 62, a leader in the left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Mrs. Jarrar, a prominent Palestinian rights activist imprisoned by Israel, was elected to the Palestinian Parliament in the 2006 elections.

The United States and the EU consider the People’s Front a terrorist organization. The group became notorious in the late 1960s for a series of hijackings, as well as other attacks, including during the Second Intifada.

Ghassan Jarrar, her husband, said in a phone interview that Israeli authorities had not allowed him to visit his wife since her arrest in December 2023. He is grasping any news about her condition he could get from infrequent visits by her lawyer, he said.

Ms Jarrar has spent much of the past decade in and out of Israeli prison, although she has not been convicted of direct involvement in Popular Front military activities. In 2015, she was sentenced to 15 months for inciting and belonging to a banned organization.

In recent years, Israel has mostly detained Ms. Jarrar without formal charges. Rights groups call the practice a serious violation of due process, while Israel says it is sometimes necessary to protect sensitive intelligence.

In 2021, her daughter Suha died while Ms. Jarrar was being held in an Israeli prison. Israel rejected a request to grant her humanitarian leave to attend the funeral.