Celebrations during the last terrorist releas
Celebrations during the last terrorist releasFlash90

The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee approved a bill from Deputy Foreign Minister MK Ze'ev Elkin (Likud) for its first reading Monday which would allow Israel to return terrorist prisoners to incarceration. 

Under the bill, terrorist prisoners released as part of 'gestures' to the Palestinian Authority (PA) or in other deals will be eligible for re-incarceration - with rearrests legally allowed as a group or as individuals.

MKs from all sides of the political spectrum signed the initiative, including MK Yariv Levin (Likud), Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home), Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism), Amnon Mitzna (HaTnua), Aliza Lavie (Yesh Atid), and Orit Struk (Jewish Home).

According to Elkin, "The purpose of law is to serve as a deterrence to the strategy of terrorist organizations to use releasing terrorists as a bargaining chip."

"Abductions will no longer be lucrative for terrorist organizations; terrorists will be put in jail and will afterwards not be released [again]."

The implication, it seems, is that terrorist prisoners' rearrests will provide a substantial lost to the terrorist groups attempting to use the move as a means of fulfilling demands on Israel - far beyond the benefits. 

The move follows the recapture of six terrorists released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit deal last week, all of whom were cleared to serve their full prison sentences. 

Hamas recently conditioned its stopping the rocket fire towards Israel on the release of the terrorists who were freed in the 2011 Shalit deal and rearrested during Operation Brother's Keeper.

The group claimed the terrorists were arrested "for no reason" as part of the crackdown on the Hamas terror infrastructure in Judea and Samaria.