Among the terrorists serving life sentences who were released in the latest ceasefire deal was a particularly unusual figure - Nader Sadka, 48, from Mount Gerizim near Shechem.
According to a report by i24News, Sadka is the only Samaritan ever to have served a prison sentence in Israel for security offenses, and now also the first to be released as part of a hostage deal.
Sadka, who was one of the leaders of the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades - the military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) - was sentenced in 2004 to six life terms and an additional 45 years in prison after being convicted of planning and carrying out suicide bombings against Israeli forces in Judea and Samaria.
According to Israeli intelligence, Sadka was involved in planning and executing a suicide bombing in Petah Tikva in 2003, in which four Israeli soldiers were killed and others injured. Shortly afterward, he was appointed commander of the PFLP’s military wing in Shechem (Nablus).
He was born in 1977 on the slopes of Mount Gerizim, in the heart of the Samaritan community - one of the world’s smallest and oldest groups, who view themselves as the descendants of the original Israelites.
With the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000, Sadka joined the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades and later became a prominent figure in the group’s military operations in Shechem.