Zin Jassim’s family, it has made them wealthy. As the Guardian reported after the first case in August, Zian Jassim was the first of several men who had allegedly participated in the war on Israel’s side in Lebanon in the 1980s to receive large payouts after their release, in the run-up to the 2000 Olympic Games. The Guardian reported that a number of other Lebanese militants had received tens of thousands of dollars as compensation. These were also released in the run-up to the 2008 Games and were re-arrested shortly afterward as part of an “Israeli attack.”

This is not to say the Palestinians should simply go begging for money. The vast majority — 96 percent at the time — remain in the West Bank. For the most part, the money collected by Hamas or other armed groups in the Gaza Strip, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, is used to buy more weapons and build terror underground cells.

So what can the Israelis and Palestinians negotiate about? A recent OCHA report from November notes that Gaza’s government and people have an “exceptionally good record of responding to calls of international humanitarian law to provide basic infrastructure such as telecommunications, energy provision and basic shelter for displaced persons to enable them to find shelter.”

But the recent surge in violence did threaten the ability for people like Mohammed and Ziad to get help. While Hamas was busy securing weapons and building a tunnel network to Gaza, many Palestinians in Gaza — and in other parts of the West Bank — felt too weak to continue fighting.