A Palestinian man who raped a 13-year-old boy before beating him to death with an iron bar is among the prisoners to be freed by Israel under the hostage deal.
Ahmed Mahmed Jameel Shahada was put behind bards in 1989 after luring teenager Oren Bahrami to a monastery in Jaffa, Tel Aviv, before raping him and beating him to death.
Oren’s parents, from south of Tel Aviv, reported him missing in April 1989. Detectives working on the case initially suspected he had been kidnapped by terrorists, after finding his abandoned bike in a Jaffa port.
But they found his body a few days later, which showed signs that he had been severely abuse, in an abandoned room in an monastery.
Cops arrested Shahada, then 26, and interrogated him for several days. He confessed to meeting the boy while fishing at the port, before luring him away.
With another accomplice, Shahada abused Oren before killing him by hitting him over the head with an ironbar.
Authorities ruled that the boy’s murder wasn’t motivated by terrorism, instead being criminally motivated. He wasn’t due for release until 2036.
Kati, Oren’s mother, revealed that no one from Israel’s government told her that her son’s rapist and murderer would be freed under the hostage deal, which was signed by both Hamas and Israel on October 8, almost exactly two years after the terror group’s attack on Israel.
Kati said she only found out after a journalist from Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, contacted her.
She said: ‘It’s a shock to me, I never imagined he would be included in the deal. It’s very hard for me to process this.
‘The murder wasn’t recognised as terrorism, and over the years, no one has ever updated us. It takes my breath away.’
In a critical day for the Middle East, Hamas today released 20 Israeli hostages and Israel has released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners under a breakthrough Gaza ceasefire deal.
US President Donald Trump, whose administration brokered the deal, made a whirlwind visit to the region, first to Israel where he addressed the parliament to repeated applause. He landed Monday afternoon in Egypt for the ‘Summit of Peace’ where world leaders are to discuss the ceasefire plan.
More ramped-up aid was being readied for Gaza, much of which is in ruins after two years of war that began when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 as hostages.
In Israel’s ensuing invasion, more than 67,600 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Buses carrying dozens of freed Palestinian prisoners arrived Monday in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Hamas-run Prisoners Office said.
They were the first to be released of about 1,700 people that troops seized from Gaza during the war and have held without charge, as well as about 250 Palestinians serving prison sentences.
At least 154 of the Palestinians had been deported to Egypt from the West Bank as per stipulations in the deal.
Many are members of Hamas and the Fatah faction who were imprisoned over shootings, bombings or other attacks that killed or attempted to kill Israelis, as well as others convicted on lesser charges. They’ll return to the West Bank or Gaza, or be deported elsewhere.
