Prominent Palestinian prisoner freed in Gaza deal unable to return to embattled hometown

Zakaria Zubeidi's last, fleeting, taste of freedom involved five days on the run after escaping from an Israeli maximum security prison in 2021, but on Thursday the Palestinian militant was released as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal.

Zubeidi, a former leader in an armed group in the West Bank city of Jenin who was involved in deadly attacks two decades ago, flashed a "V-for-victory" sign as he arrived in a bus with other Palestinian prisoners in Ramallah.

However, he may not be able to return home. The Jenin refugee camp where he grew up has turned into a battle zone, with Israel pivoting from the war in Gaza to step up military operations against Hamas in the West Bank.

The fate of Zubeidi, one of the most prominent Palestinian prisoners being released, underscores the growing shift in Israel's focus to the West Bank and particularly to Jenin, which its forces entered as soon as the Gaza ceasefire began.

But his release also highlights the high stakes at play in an ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians to which no political solution appears close.

Under the terms of the Gaza ceasefire deal, Israel is releasing Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the militant Islamist group Hamas freeing hostages it seized in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack that set off 15 months of war in the tiny enclave.

Zubeidi was Jenin head of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the military wing of the main Palestinian party Fatah, throughout the Second Intifada, the armed uprising against Israeli occupation that raged from 2000 to 2005.

Refugee camp

Jenin, a crowded township built for descendants of Palestinians who fled their homes or were driven out in the 1948 Middle East war around the creation of the state of Israel, was a focal point for the intifada and a major battle site in 2002.

That conflict made Zubeidi a powerbroker, both in Jenin and in wider Palestinian politics, and he was subject to assassination attempts before being included in a 2007 amnesty deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Zubeidi has said in press interviews that his childhood memories include Israeli forces arresting his father for membership of Fatah and then shooting him in the leg and jailing him for throwing stones at them when he was a teenager.

His mother hosted a children's theatre group in Jenin run by Israeli peace activists and Zubeidi was a keen participant. She was killed during an Israeli military operation in the camp in 2002, but after the Second Intifada ended Zubeidi again turned to theatre, this time as a director.

Israel arrested him in 2019 on charges of engaging in armed activities. But he and five other prisoners dug a tunnel through the floor of their cell over two years using plates, concealing it with a floorboard.

They clambered through a drainage system and escaped on foot, running through fields. But five days later he and a fellow escapee were discovered hiding in a truck in an Arab village in northern Israel.