Firecrackers lit up the night sky Friday as raucous celebrations — mixed with defiance — marked the release of Palestinian women and children from Israeli prisons in exchange for the first wave of hostages freed by Hamas in Gaza.

Crowds across the West Bank cheered and waved Palestinian and Hamas flags, along with kaffiyeh scarves after two white coaches — escorted by armoured vehicles — exited the Ofer military camp with the prisoners.

“I am happy but my liberation came at the price of the blood of the martyrs,” said Marah Bakir, 24, referring to the nearly 15,000 deaths across the Gaza Strip that its Hamas-led government says were caused by Israel’s military offensive.

Freedom from “the four walls of the prison” was “magnificent”, said Bakir, who had been in custody for eight years.

“I spent the end of my childhood and my adolescence in prison, far from my parents and their hugs,” she told AFP after returning to her family home in Beit Hanina in annexed east Jerusalem.

“That’s how it is with a state that oppresses us.”

– ‘Eating bitterness’ –বিস্তারিত