Palestinian journalist reunited with child after harrowing months in Israeli jail

The female Palestinian inmates were made to kneel in a line on a cold evening last Sunday on the grounds of Israel’s Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank.

The female Palestinian inmates were made to kneel in a line on a cold evening last Sunday on the grounds of Israel’s Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank. “This is not a victory for you. We have destroyed and killed in Gaza, in Yemen, in Syria, in Iran. We killed (your) leadership,” one, Rula Hassanein, recalled hearing in a 90-second Israeli propaganda video they were forced to watch on a large screen ahead of their release. The women were part of a group of 90 Palestinian prisoners released in a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel. Around nine hours earlier, Hamas had freed three Israeli hostages in Gaza after 15 months of captivity. Hassanein remembers the video vividly. The prisoners, she said, were made to watch it on loop for hours as Palestinians gathered outside to receive them. “We were not allowed to look left or right. Only at the screen,” she told CNN. Two other released prisoners also told CNN that they were forced to watch the video. In an interview with CNN from her home in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, Hassanein appeared frail and exhausted. Sitting in her living room, she was surrounded by family photos that had been her toddler’s only connection to her for the past 10 months. She had given birth to her first child just months before her arrest, in March 2024. Hassanein worked as a journalist for local media outlets.