Among the many Palestinians launched on Thursday in a hostage-for-prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas was Zakaria Zubeidi, who over the previous twenty years has been a militant, a theater director and an escaped prisoner whose flight shocked Israelis and Palestinians alike.
Mr. Zubeidi, 49, rose to prominence as a militant chief through the Second Intifada, or rebellion, within the early 2000s, throughout which Palestinian militants dedicated lethal assaults towards Israelis, together with suicide bombings that focused civilian thoroughfares.
Israel responded by reoccupying main Palestinian cities amid avenue battles. A few of the hardest combating came about within the Palestinian metropolis of Jenin, Mr. Zubeidi’s hometown. His mom and one among his brothers had been killed through the clashes.
He later emerged as a high commander within the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, an armed militia loosely linked with the secular Fatah get together, the dominant Palestinian political faction within the West Financial institution. On a minimum of one event, Mr. Zubeidi publicly introduced that the group had performed armed assaults towards Israelis.
After the Second Intifada, Israel granted sweeping amnesty to militants affiliated with Fatah; the get together now controls the Palestinian Authority, with which Israel coordinates intently on safety within the West Financial institution.
Mr. Zubeidi later turned to theater, which he mentioned was a simpler technique of resistance than violence. He helped direct the Freedom Theater, a group cultural heart within the hardscrabble Jenin refugee camp, which was based by Palestinians displaced by the 1948 wars surrounding Israel’s institution.
“I don’t miss weapons,” Mr. Zubeidi mentioned in an interview with Israeli tv a number of years in the past. “I miss the intifada, the revolution.”
However in 2019, Israel arrested him once more on costs that he had returned to militancy, accusing him of involvement in current West Financial institution violence.
Two years later, Mr. Zubeidi and 5 different Palestinian prisoners performed a jailbreak by crawling almost 32 yards by way of an underground tunnel outdoors one among Israel’s maximum-security prisons.
Though they had been later recaptured, the jail break shook Israelis and thrilled Palestinians. Israelis noticed Mr. Zubeidi’s escape as a chilling safety breach with the potential to incite additional violence. Many Palestinians referred to as it a brief victory towards Israel’s mass incarceration of Palestinians.
An Israeli drone strike killed Mr. Zubeidi’s son, Mohammad, in September. The Israeli army referred to as the son a “vital terrorist” and mentioned he had been concerned in capturing at Israeli troops.
Different militants convicted of involvement in lethal assaults towards Israelis had been additionally among the many Palestinians being launched on Thursday.
One was Sami Jaradat, 56, who was serving a number of life sentences for involvement in a lethal 2003 suicide bombing that focused a restaurant in Haifa, on the Israeli coast. Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a militant group, claimed duty for the assault.
Not less than 21 individuals had been killed within the bombing, in keeping with the Israeli authorities, together with girls, youngsters and a one-year-old woman.
Mr. Jaradat, like many Palestinian detainees concerned within the deadliest assaults towards Israelis, is not going to be allowed to return to his dwelling close to Jenin. Underneath the phrases of the deal, he can be expelled to both the Gaza Strip or one other nation like Egypt.
Not like Mr. Jaradat, Mr. Zubeidi is anticipated to stay within the West Financial institution.
On Thursday, Mr. Zubeidi’s spouse, Alaa, 39, stood together with her sisters and pals in Ramallah, within the Israeli-occupied West Financial institution, wearing black, to attend for him to be launched from jail.
She mentioned she had been in mourning since her son Mohammad’s demise, visiting his grave day by day till mid-December, when Palestinian safety forces started working within the Jenin refugee camp.
Fatima AbdulKarim contributed reporting.