Gaza, (Palestine Foundation Information Center), After spending months in detention under extremely harsh and alarming conditions, 15 Palestinian prisoners from the Gaza Strip returned to their loved ones and homeland on Wednesday evening. Following their release by the Israeli occupation forces, they were handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross and taken to Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, where they received a warm welcome and were transferred to the hospital for initial medical examinations.
The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs said that its staff, along with an official delegation, received the released prisoners to check on their condition. It also coordinated directly with the Ministry of Health to arrange the necessary medical examinations, particularly as the released detainees showed clear signs of exhaustion and physical weakness resulting from the hardships they endured during their prolonged detention.
According to official figures, all those released were Palestinian workers who had been arrested while staying in areas inside Israel. The release also carried a particularly distressing humanitarian dimension, as the group included a 17-year-old minor suffering from cancer, as well as an 18-year-old young man.
The released prisoners included Ramzi Kamal Assaf, 47; Momen Misbah Ghneim, 37; Sobhi Ahmad al-Jadbah, 37; Amer Misbah al-Far, 55; Alaa Ashraf Nabhan, 35; Imad Azmi Qaiti, 45; Mohammed Jamal Mehra, 31; and Salim Atiya Abu Asr, 63.
The list also included Mohammed Khaled Salman, 33; Ammar Ahmad Hussein, 39; Mohammed Mahmoud Nasr, 44; Abdul Rahman Talal Fayyad, 46; Issam Khair Nasr, 45; Iyad Mahmoud Karkaz, 17; and Ahmad Mahmoud Marouf, 18.
The release of this new group comes as limited numbers of prisoners from the Gaza Strip continue to be released intermittently. Palestinian prisoners’ institutions have highlighted the extremely harsh and inhumane detention conditions faced by these detainees, as well as their deteriorating health, severe exhaustion, and the psychological and physical effects evident among many released prisoners upon their return to Gaza.
According to figures released by Palestinian prisoners’ institutions at the beginning of July 2026, approximately 9,400 Palestinian prisoners and detainees were being held in Israeli prisons, including around 1,320 detainees from the Gaza Strip whom Israeli authorities classify as “unlawful combatants.”
According to the prisoners’ institutions, these figures do not include thousands of detainees held in military and secret detention camps and centers, including the Sde Teiman camp and other locations. Available information about their numbers, conditions, and places of detention remains extremely limited.
The file concerning detainees from the Gaza Strip is considered one of the most complex and opaque detention cases, particularly as large numbers of people are being held away from adequate legal and media oversight. The intermittent releases once again expose the scale of the suffering detainees have endured during their imprisonment and renew calls for transparency regarding the fate of all detainees, the protection of their fundamental rights, and the provision of necessary medical care.
