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00:00As you join us, calmer scenes here outside the Ramallah Cultural Palace, but just an
00:05hour ago and throughout the hour that ensued, there were mobs, many thousands of people
00:10here to welcome back the 32 Palestinian prisoners who were brought here to the capital of the
00:16West Bank, part of the 183 who have been freed as part of this latest hostages for prisoners
00:22exchange.
00:24We saw prisoners who have been incarcerated for something like 20 years who were basically
00:30carried on the shoulders of the crowd down the hill with chants of great celebrations.
00:38One has to view this, of course, from both sides of a very complicated equation here
00:41in the Middle East because the people in hostage wear might be looking upon this as some kind
00:46of travesty that prisoners have been released.
00:49But here there was a sense of families being reunited, justice in some cases being done.
00:55There were, of course, some fairly heavily sentenced prisoners who were released today.
01:00I can think of three in question responsible for multiple deaths.
01:03They will be expelled to third-party countries as part of the agreement.
01:07But many people will be released who perhaps have been behind bars since October 7, 2023,
01:13when they were arrested as part of Israel's swoop to try to, as they put it, put more
01:18security on the situation.
01:20These people may have been behind bars with no legal recourse waiting to find out precisely
01:24what actually they've done.
01:26For instance, we've reported already about journalists being put behind bars because
01:30they were being basically journalists.
01:32So there's an element of injustice and arbitrary nature about the justice that's been handed
01:36out.
01:37Today, for many people, justice being done, people being freed, and there's been scenes
01:42of celebration and tears of happiness as well here in Ramallah.
01:45Yeah, a lot of jubilant scenes there earlier in Ramallah.
01:48You mentioned that number, 183.
01:51How did we arrive at that figure?
01:57The usual equation is one civilian equals 30 prisoners.
02:00So today, that should have been 90, if you'd use that calculation.
02:03You don't need to be a genius in math, and I'm certainly not one of those.
02:06But what we've got is 183.
02:08That's a doubling of the process.
02:10This has been done in some kind of concession in order to try to keep faith between the
02:14two sides.
02:15We've not had an official statement to explain precisely why that has happened, but nonetheless,
02:19that is where we are.
02:20So we were off a prison earlier to see the process of prisoners being released.
02:24At that point, this leaflet was dropped down on people via a drone, which triggered panic.
02:30People thinking we're being attacked in some way, shape, or form.
02:32It was merely a message.
02:33And this is from the Israeli army.
02:34It says, we're watching you.
02:35We know who you are.
02:36And if you're in a terror organization, we will put you in prison, a clear threat.
02:40The soldiers then came and told us to move from the hillside where we were watching.
02:43And at one point, when we were trying to get away from there, they threw some tear gas
02:47at us.
02:48So getting to this point, a completely different type of mood, a celebration in many ways,
02:54and certainly an amount of resolution about what happens next.
02:57There is, of course, the ongoing Israeli operation, the military operation across the West Bank,
03:02trying to clear out, as they put it, terrorists in places like Jenin and Tulkarem.
03:06That is ongoing and will continue to carry on.
03:08So the state of tension continues.
03:11And what that means for the peace process going forward, what that means for the ceasefire
03:15going forward, of course, is that it's a very delicate situation and remains so.