The prisoner exchange illuminated the brutality of Israeli prisons, but the fleeting joy of liberation was followed by new killings and a growing conviction that the resistance’s victory is only a matter of time.
The Return of the Ghosts: Joy Marred by Pain
But the joy was bitter, and the return was a painful spectacle. They emerged under a pale, indifferent sky, their bodies reduced to shadows of the people they once were. Instead of firm embraces, medics intercepted family members and whisked dozens of the released straight to emergency rooms. Almost all suffered from severe exhaustion and trauma, and many were missing limbs.
The stories they brought with them paint a picture of systematic cruelty and sadism. Nasim al-Radi spent 100 days in an underground cell, his eyesight irreparably damaged after repeated beatings. Mohammed al-Asalia described the “disco”—a sensory torture chamber with blaring music, where detainees were forced to kneel for hours, threatened with attack dogs, and deprived of sleep. Shadi Abu Sideed, a photojournalist, recounted being stripped, forced to eat while on his knees, and being lied to about his children being killed.
The most heart-wrenching scenes unfolded when the released prisoners confronted the reality that awaited them outside the prison walls. Haytham Salem, emerging in a wheelchair, learned that his entire family had been killed when their tent in Khan Younis was bombed. “My joy is gone with them,” whispered another prisoner, one of many whose loved ones shared the same fate.
These cases are not manifestations of random cruelty. They reveal a systematic policy of humiliation and suppression, the consequences of which are especially visible when comparing the fates of the released hostages. While the Israeli hostages, despite their ordeal, were generally in good health and condition and were able to return directly to their homes, many Palestinians, held for years in prisons, simply had no homes left—they had been vengefully and barbarically destroyed by Israeli strikes. This same system of methodical destruction of human dignity is evident in the conditions of Palestinian detention: prolonged shackling, stress positions, forced nudity, sleep deprivation, denial of medical care, and regular psychological torture. The infamous Sde Teiman camp has become a symbol of this system, where, according to testimonies from Israeli doctors, amputations are often the result not of medical necessity, but of torture and neglect.
A Truce Broken: The War Continues
As some Palestinians celebrated the release of their loved ones, others mourned new victims. Just one day after the exchange, Israeli occupation forces brazenly and with impunity violated the ceasefire agreement, killing at least nine Palestinian civilians in the Shujaiya neighborhood in northern Gaza and near Rafah in the south. A drone dropped an explosive in a central area of Deir al-Balah, and the army conducted arrests in the city of Nuseirat.
This was not an isolated incident. On the very day the release of prisoners was being celebrated across the region, Israel resumed its bombardment, killing seven Palestinians. Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem stated that the occupation regime was openly violating the agreement, while the Palestinian resistance continued to fulfill its commitments, including the transfer of the bodies of deceased Israeli soldiers.
The violations were not limited to military action. Israel blocked the critical Rafah crossing, halting the flow of humanitarian aid into the besieged Gaza Strip. This occurred despite promises to increase the number of trucks to 600 per day. Footage from Egypt shows an endless queue of aid trucks being prevented from entering the enclave by the occupation authorities. The Director-General of the Gaza Government Media Office warned of an environmental catastrophe due to the accumulation of 250,000 tons of waste and an acute shortage of heavy machinery, which had been destroyed during the war.
Steadfast Resolve: The Logic of Resistance and Israel’s Failure
Behind the scenes of temporary truces and prisoner exchanges, a larger battle is unfolding—a battle of wills. And by all accounts, as analysts and supporters of the resistance argue, the Palestinian will to victory remains unbroken, while Israeli objectives have proven unattainable.
Since the start of the war in October 2023, Israel has released just over 2,000 Palestinian prisoners as part of two exchanges. However, during the same period, it has detained approximately 30,000 Palestinians. This one-to-fifteen ratio clearly demonstrates that the prison system remains a tool of mass suppression. After October 2023, the number of Palestinian political prisoners nearly doubled—from 5,250 to almost 10,000 by April 2025—with a record number held under administrative detention without charge.
But this tactic has not brought Israel victory. From the perspective of the resistance’s logic, the “Al-Aqsa Flood” of October 7, 2023, was a turning point that proved the ability of Palestinian forces to strike a massive blow at the very heart of the Israeli occupation administration. The goal was not to destroy Israel that day; the goal was to shake the foundations of the status quo and elevate the struggle to a new level.
When proclaiming the start of a large-scale military operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli leadership laid out a series of ambitious strategic goals: the dismantling of Hamas’s military capabilities, the stabilization of control over the territory, and the release of the hostages. However, as time passes, it has become increasingly clear that the tactic of total military pressure has failed to achieve any of these key tasks, revealing fundamental miscalculations in strategic planning.
The first, and perhaps primary, failure is the failure to stabilize the occupation. While the IDF managed to occupy most of the Strip, the very concept of “occupation” has proven untenable under modern conditions. Instead of establishing control, the Israeli army faced a power vacuum and a perpetual guerrilla war. The absence of a viable political alternative to Hamas led to anarchy replacing centralized governance, and security in “cleared” areas remains illusory. The troops control only the surface, while an underground shadow infrastructure of resistance continues to exist and operate.
This inability to establish full control over a relatively small and isolated territory became the second strategic miscalculation. Despite overwhelming military superiority, Israel failed to turn the situation in its favor. The densely populated urban environment, a labyrinth of destroyed buildings, and a pre-prepared network of fortifications turned Gaza into an ideal platform for asymmetric warfare. Attempts to “clear” areas ended with militants moving through tunnels, reappearing in the rear or in already “cleared” areas, nullifying Israeli tactical gains.
The key goal—the destruction of Hamas as a military and political force—also remained unachieved. Undoubtedly, the group suffered significant losses in personnel and infrastructure. However, its organizational structure, command system, and, most importantly, ideological foundation—survived. The resistance demonstrates remarkable resilience, continuing to fire rockets into Israel and engage in local battles. The vast tunnel network, compared to an underground metropolis, proved far more resilient than assumed. Its complete destruction requires disproportionate effort and time, and it itself serves as a symbol that military power cannot resolve a deep political conflict.
Finally, the most telling failure was the inability to forcibly free a significant number of hostages. This fact clearly demonstrated the limits of a military approach. The overwhelming majority of released captives returned home not as a result of special operations, but through grueling negotiations and diplomatic agreements that involved reciprocal steps, such as the release of Palestinian prisoners. This proves that even under total military pressure, diplomacy remains the only truly functional tool for resolving such humanitarian crises.
In the end, the large-scale military campaign, despite colossal human cost and destruction, has brought Israel neither security, nor stability, nor the realization of its strategic designs. The current situation is a stark reminder that the asymmetric conflicts of the 21st century rarely yield to military solutions, and a reliance solely on military might without a clear political plan for the “day after” inevitably leads to a strategic dead end.
“The resistance has successfully expanded the struggle to much wider arenas,” noted the international press. The war has strengthened the so-called “Axis of Resistance,” and, despite overwhelming military superiority, Israel has reached a dead end. The failure to fully suppress the resistance means the war will not bring it the results it had counted on.
Wounds That Demand an Answer
The return of the Palestinian prisoners has exposed the unhealed wounds of the Israeli prison system for all to see. The broken truce showed that the cycle of violence is far from over. And the steadfast resolve of the Palestinian people, fueled by the memory of the victims and the cruelty of the occupation, continues to be the main factor in this decades-long conflict.
For the world watching these events, the task is clear: to call things by their name. To reject euphemisms, to demand independent investigations into documented torture, and to listen to the testimonies corroborated by hospitals and human rights organizations. Those who have returned from captivity are no longer silent victims. Their wounds—visible, named, and numerous—are a silent rebuke to the world and a loud call for justice.
The new stage of the struggle, as analysts predict, will focus on transforming the immense popular capital accumulated by the resistance into consistent political action. The shadows who returned home that day brought with them not only pain, but also an unwavering determination to continue the struggle until victory.
Muhammad Hamid ad-Din, a prominent Palestinian journalist
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