In a moment where the pain of siege merged with tears of joy and victory, Gaza rose from the ashes to prove to the world that Palestinian willpower cannot be defeated. After two years of genocide, siege, and massacres, the wounded city once again stood on its feet to welcome its liberated detainees from the prisons of the usurping entity — in a scene overflowing with symbolism, declaring that Gaza, which has bled for so long, remains capable of joy, and that freedom is born from the ruins.
Crowds filled the public squares, the hospitals, and the offices of the Red Cross, eyes fixed on the moment when years of captivity would turn into a long-awaited embrace. In streets still bleeding from war, ululations and chants of joy rose above the sound of silence, and Palestinian flags danced over the rubble of destroyed homes. These were not ordinary scenes of liberation — they were Gaza’s renewed declaration that what war failed to break, it rebuilt with patience and faith.
As the buses carrying the liberated detainees appeared, the air filled with emotion. Tears mingled with laughter; children raised photos of their fathers with unmatched joy; women wept with relief; and men stood in awe of a moment that had taken years to arrive — embracing the returnees as though they were embracing life itself after a long exile in death.
In that scene, which transcended every image before it, Gaza once again proclaimed that freedom is not granted, but seized. Among the ruins, people emerged in modest clothes and with generous hearts — their faces pale from hunger and exhaustion, yet their eyes shone with a light stronger than the ashes. Every child waving their hands seemed to declare that a generation born under bombardment would grow on steadfastness, not fear, and on the certainty that they will remain in their homeland until it is free.
The lists of detainees published by the Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs Commission, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, and the Prisoners’ Media Office marked a new chapter in the story of Palestinian resilience. They included 250 detainees — 192 serving life sentences, 25 with high sentences, and 32 awaiting trial — in addition to 1,718 detainees from the Gaza Strip who were arrested after October 7, 2023.
These figures were not mere statistics of release, but a mirror reflecting a long struggle between an unbroken will, and prisons that never succeeded in silencing their voices. From among those names, Gaza once again redefined its eternal equation: dignity first, and freedom is never begged for — it is taken.
Though the war extinguished homes, it could not extinguish the spirit. Gaza, which endured massacres, starvation, and destruction, rose again to tell the world that it does not die. with the faces of the liberated detainees, with the tears of mothers, and with the songs of joy echoing among the rubble, one message was written: this land does not bow, and its people — no matter how long the captivity or how grave is the loss — will remain steadfast, deeply rooted in their Land.
