Under the Gaza ceasefire and hostages-for-prison exchange, more than 200 Palestinians are scheduled to be deported, including the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner in Israeli custody, who militants regard as the "dean" of their inmates.

More than any other Palestinian, 67-year-old Nael Barghouti has been imprisoned by Israel for 44 years. He was released in 2011 in a prior exchange after being imprisoned in 1978 for the murder of an Israeli bus driver, but he was captured again three years later and has remained in custody ever since.

Israel has said that Palestinians who have been convicted of killing Israelis must be permanently deported if they are freed under the Gaza ceasefire agreement, and will not be allowed to return to homes in the occupied West Bank.

Barghouti is one of 217 prisoners on a list from the Israeli justice ministry, cited by the Palestinian prisoners' association, of those to be sent abroad.

His wife Eman Nafe, herself a former prisoner who spent 10 years in Israeli jail accused of plotting a suicide attack, said she thought he might reject release if it meant being sent abroad: "I am sure he will refuse this," she told Reuters.

There are 10,400 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, not including detainees arrested in Gaza during the last 15 months of war, according to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners' Society.

Under ceasefire agreement, Hamas is due to release 33 hostages in the first six-week phase of the truce, including women, children, men over 50 and ill and wounded captives.

In return, Israel will release 1,167 people detained in Gaza during the war and 737 other prisoners from the West Bank, Jerusalem or Gaza.

The first three Israeli hostages were freed on Sunday in return for 90 Palestinian detainees, though none of the most sensitive Palestinian prisoners were in that initial group.

Barghouti, who shares a common Palestinian surname with jailed political leader Marwan Barghouti, a distant relative, will learn that much has changed during his years in prison, his wife said.

He will find "that his only brother has also died, that his brother's son was martyred, many houses have been destroyed, and many members of the family are detained," she said.