Planners of Park Hotel bombing attack ‘set to go free'

Unconfirmed list of prisoners to be freed in Schalit deal includes IDF soldier Nachshon Wachsman's killers, Dolphinarium attack planners.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
Hamas soldier 311 R (photo credit: Israel Picture Service/REUTERS)
Hamas soldier 311 R
(photo credit: Israel Picture Service/REUTERS)
Hamas-affiliated media outlets began on Thursday publishing names of imprisoned terrorists who will reportedly be set free by Israel in exchange for captive soldier Gilad Schalit.
The list, which has not been confirmed by Israel as of Thursday night, contains the names of terrorists behind painful images of death and destruction.
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They are part of the first phase of 450 prisoners set to be freed out of the 1,027 names in total.
They include Nasser Batima, convicted of planning the 2002 Passover Seder suicide-bomb attack on the Park Hotel in Netanya, in which 30 civilians were killed and 140 were wounded.
Israel Radio said that the unconfirmed list also named Husam Badran, head of Hamas terrorist cells in the northern West Bank, who took part in the planning of the 2001 bombing of the Dolphinarium nightclub in Tel Aviv, in which 21 youths were murdered, the Park Hotel bombing, and the 2002 bombing of the Matza Restaurant in Haifa, in which 14 civilians lost their lives.
Other men listed were Hamas member Yehieh Sinwar, sentenced to five life sentences for his role in the kidnapping and murder of Sgt. Nachshon Wachsman. Sinwar is the brother of one of the Hamas men who planned Gilad Schalit’s kidnapping, and a founding member of Hamas’s military structure in Gaza.
Another name on the list is Jihad Yarmur, a member of the cell that killed Wachsman during the failed bid to rescue him from his kidnappers in 1994.
Ahmed Najar, former commander of a Hamas cell that murdered three Israelis in shooting attacks, is also to be released, according to Hamas’s Al-Aksa TV.
Islamic Jihad member Abd al-Hadi Gnaim, a terrorist who hijacked an Egged bus in 1989 traveling from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and drove it over a steep drop, killing 16 passengers, is also reportedly on the list.
Muhammad Shrataha, head of the cell that kidnapped and murdered Sgt. Avi Sasportas and Pvt. Ilan Sa’adon in 1989, will also reportedly soon be free.
Additional names include Fahad Shaludi, convicted of his role in the kidnap and murder of Pvt. Yaron Hen in 1993, and Muhammad Atun, Mussa Akawi and Majad Abu Katish, members of a Hamas cell that kidnapped and murdered Border Police Sgt.- Maj. Nissim Toledano in 1992.
Two men convicted of stabbing to death yeshiva student Haim Kerman in 1998 in Jerusalem, Bassam Abu Sanina and Riad Asila, are also on the list.
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According to reports, Muhammad Hamada, convicted of plotting to fire a missile at the Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem when it was filled with fans, will be set free. Na’el Barghouti, the Palestinian prisoner who has served the most time in an Israeli prison – 30 years – will be released, Hamas said.
The oldest Palestinian security prisoner, 78-year-old Sami Yunis, is also slated to be released.
In the first stage, 450 prisoners will be let go – 280 of whom are serving life sentences.
Schalit will then be sent to Israel, and another 550 prisoners – including women – will be released.
One of the women slated to be released was named on a list published on the website of the Al-Aksa TV channel.
The woman, Ahlam Tamimi, was the first woman to join the Islamist movement and the person who drove the suicide bomber who carried out the attack at the Sbarro restaurant at the corner of King George Street and Jaffa Road in Jerusalem in August 2001. Sixteen people were killed, including five members of the Schijveschuurder family from the community of Neria in Binyamin.
Attorney Meir Schijveschuurder, who lost his parents and three siblings in the suicide bombing, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2009 that if the woman responsible for murdering his family was ever released from jail, he would try to kill her.
“If they her go to, let’s say, Palestine, Gaza Strip – the Hamas is the government over there – then we going to act according to the same law, the same Shari’a, which means blood for blood,” he said.
Top terrorists Marwan Barghouti, Abdullah Barghouti, Ibrahim Hamed and Ahmed Sa’adat will not be released as part of the deal.

Yaakov Katz and Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.