Chairman of the PA-funded Prisoners’ Club implicitly calls for kidnapping of Israelis to use in exchange deals for terrorist prisoners

Chairman of the PA-funded Prisoners’ Club Qadura Fares: “I checked how the Palestinian revolution and the national movement behaved in general on the prisoners’ cause. 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?”

[Official PA TV, Giants of Endurance, Dec. 15, 2022]

1971 prisoner exchange deal - Israel released Fatah terrorist Mahmoud Bakr Hijazi in exchange for 59-year-old Israeli guard Shmuel Rozenvasser on Feb. 28, 1971. Hijazi had been serving 30 years for attempting to blow up the Nehusha Water Institute in central Israel on Jan. 7, 1965. Rozenvasser was kidnapped by a Fatah terror cell that infiltrated Metula in northern Israel from Lebanon on Jan. 1, 1970. Rozenvasser was tortured in captivity. In 1974, the PLO established Palestinian Prisoner's Day on April 17 of every year, marking the date when the prisoner deal for Hijazi's release was agreed upon with Israel on April 17, 1970. 

1979 prisoner exchange deal - Israel released 76 Palestinian terrorists in exchange for soldier Avraham Amram on March 14, 1979. Amram was captured by terrorists of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP - GC) in Lebanon on April 5, 1978, in an attack in which 4 soldiers were murdered. Amram was tortured in captivity and attempted to commit suicide.

The capture of 8 Israeli soldiers in Lebanon – Eight Israeli soldiers were captured by Fatah terrorists in Bhamadoun, Lebanon on Sept. 4, 1982. Two of them were handed to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and 6 were held by Fatah. Fatah released the 6 soldiers on Nov. 23, 1983 as part of an exchange deal in which Israel released 4,700 terrorists who were held in Lebanon and 65 terrorists held in Israel. The two handed over to the PFLP were released on May 21, 1985, as part of an exchange deal in which Israel released 1,150 terrorist prisoners.