JERUSALEM (AP) — A senior Israeli security official says the most prominent Palestinian prisoners held by Israel will not be released as part of a prisoner swap with Hamas.
Yoram Cohen, head of Israel’s Shin Bet agency, told reporters late Tuesday that 450 Palestinian prisoners will be freed in the coming days in exchange for a captured Israeli soldier.
Cohen says nearly 300 prisoners serving life terms will be freed, but top prisoners, including uprising leader Marwan Barghouti, Hamas bomb maker Abdullah Barghouti and faction leader Ahmed Saadat will all remain behind bars.
He says some 40 of the freed prisoners will be deported. Among them are Mona Amna, a woman who lured an Israeli boy to the West Bank, where he was killed.
Some 550 prisoners are to be freed later.
