Released Terrorists Urge Kidnappings of Israelis as Means to Free Prisoners

Hamas vowed “not [to] stop capturing soldiers until all our prisoners are released.”

By Nan Jacques Zilberdik, Palestinian Media Watch

In at least two different interviews, newly released Israeli Arab terrorist murderer Karim Younes implicitly encouraged kidnappings of Israelis. This would – via resulting exchange deals – serve as a means to free terrorist prisoners before they have served their full time.

Having himself served a sentence of 40 years, Younes recalled the past when “every three or four years there was an exchange deal, and therefore the prisoners always had hope.”

He seemed to blame the “factions” – a Palestinian euphemism for terror groups – for not having pulled this off more recently, and implored that they “must not let despair and frustration enter the souls of [the prisoners].” In other words, they should continue kidnapping Israelis, thereby creating the possibility for exchange deals to give the imprisoned terrorists hope.

Another statement by Younes two weeks later could be understood as a hint at the same kidnappings and exchange deals. Here he addressed “all the officials” and “all the factions,” stating that they ought to “take more serious action” in order to bring about the “freedom” of the prisoners, who he described as “soldiers” who “did what they did on orders from them” – the officials.

Mentioning the eight years Hamas has been holding two Israeli civilians and the bodies of 2 Israeli soldiers – through whom no exchange deal has been reached – released prisoner Yusuf Nazzal implied that more kidnappings should have been carried out and more done to reach exchange deals so as to free the 360 terrorists who have been in prison for more than two decades:

“But a hope that is extended for eight years – you are talking about 360 prisoners who have been [in prison] for more than 20 years. For how long?” Nazal said on official PA TV last month.

Chairman of the PA-funded Prisoners’ Club Qadura Fares made a similar implicit call for kidnapping Israelis to use them in exchange deals for terrorist prisoners. He explained that those same 300+ terrorist prisoners who have been in prison more than 20 years have not been freed because there have been no frequent exchange deals since the 1970s and 1980s.

“I checked how the Palestinian revolution and the national movement behaved in general on the prisoners’ cause,” Fares said on official PA TV on Dec. 15, 2022. “I found that the [prisoner] exchange deals were in 1971, 1979, 1983, 1985, [after] short periods of time. Therefore, we didn’t have 320 prisoners sitting [in prison] for over 20 years.These numbers didn’t exist… This should make us stop and think. This is a big question. Okay, what will we do?”

Announcing the terror organization Hamas terror organization’s constant readiness to kidnap Israeli soldiers, Hamas Political Bureau Deputy Director Sheikh Saleh Al-Arouri recently vowed “not [to] stop capturing soldiers until all our prisoners are released.”