Since the day Wafa al-Bess failed to blow herself apart at an Israeli military post she has not relented in her personal struggle against the Jewish state. Sentenced to 12 years in prison for the attempted suicide bombing on the edge of the Gaza Strip, she agitated her jailers – going on hunger strike against a prison uniform, organising protests for the rights of detainees – until she was thrown into solitary confinement for months at a time.

Even on her first full day of freedom on Wednesday as part of the deal that saw the Israeli solider Gilad Shalit freed from captivity in Gaza, Bess did not take a break. She was, she said, ready to strap on a bomb belt again. "I do not regret what I did," said Bess, 27.

"What I did wasn't something that big because other Palestinians have given their lives. I wanted to give my life but I couldn't because there was a problem with the bomb … I'm a living martyr because I wanted to kill myself but the bomb didn't work". Asked if she would the same thing again, she replied: "Yes, I will never give up on Palestine or the rights of my people."

But like others among the 477 Palestinian prisoners freed on Monday, the bulk of them to the Gaza Strip, Bess has re-entered a changed world. A fanatical supporter of the late Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, she periodically bursts into war slogans against Israel and then breaks down in tears. "Fatah is my mother, it's in my blood," she told a group of schoolchildren who came to wish her well.

The present Fatah leader and Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has repudiated suicide bombings as terrorism and said he is committed to establishing a state by political means. Bess is unfased. So is her mother, Salma. "I felt proud that she was brave enough to do something like that for her country," she said.

Many of the former prisoners spent their first full day of freedom being feted at home by streams of well-wishers bearing gifts and flowers. Others, including Basem Naser, spent time wondering how to reunite with children they have never met. Naser was among those prisoners from the West Bank who were required by Israel to go to Gaza upon release. For now, he is being put up in a seafront hotel that is a far cry from a shared, cramped cell.

Naser has none of Bess's enthusiasm for continued struggle. He served 20 years of a life sentence for shooting dead an Israeli man, chosen at random on a Haifa street, in revenge for the Israeli army killing his 12-year-old cousin.

"I'm not political. I don't belong to any faction. I didn't shoot him because I thought it was going to change anything. I was just angry. I wanted to shoot someone and he happened to be walking down the street," he said.

Naser paid a high price for that anger. He was separated from his wife, Ibtisam, and unborn son, Oqab, who he has never touched and never expected to. "I never thought I'd be released. I still can't believe I'm sitting here. We heard about the prisoner swap on television on Tuesday. We didn't know the names but all the prisoners were trying to work out if they fitted the criteria for release," he said.

Naser, who was a baker before he was jailed, may be free but he is still separated because his family is trapped in the West Bank. "I only spent eight months with my wife before I went to prison," he said. "I want my wife and son to come and live here but my wife says that my son has never lived with me and his job and his life is in Jenin and I can't just expect him to move."

Jalal Saquer, too, left behind children. The Hamas fighter served 20 years of four life sentences for killing three Palestinian collaborators with Israel, and a Jewish settler. Saquer, in a new military uniform, shows little emotion as he talks about the years of separation from his four daughters, one of whom, Afnan, was just a few months old when he jailed.

"I was only allowed two family visits in the past 12 years," he said. "But I was proud to be a fighter. I don't believe in the peace process, I believe in fighting. The Jews lived on this land with us before 1948 and we can live here together again. But only if there is one state – Palestine."

Saquer's wife and children offer noisy support for his position, but they are not shy about talking about the personal cost too. Afnan, who is is now married and pregnant, is effectively meeting her father for the first time. Another daughter, Tamador, already has a child. "It was really hard without a dad at home. I delivered two babies, a boy and a girl. The boy died and my father never met him," she said. "We never expected him to be free."

All the prisoners describe their detention as brutal with long periods of solitary confinement. Bess believes she was targeted for harsh treatment because she was a failed suicide bomber, an action regarded with particular contempt by Israelis because suicide attacks have killed so many women and children. "They told me I was still a threat, still a terrorist. They put me in solitary confinement in an underground cell with no light. Cockroaches shared my food. They kept telling me they would make me regret my actions but I never did," she said. But Bess also concedes that she drew the ire of the prison authorities because of her frequent agitation for prisoner rights.

"I used to stand up for the rights of prisoners which made the situation worse. Our only weapons were hunger strikes. I went on hunger strike for 21 days, just water and salt," she said. "They wanted to make me wear the orange uniform of the common criminal. I refused. Sometimes they took my television away and my water heater."

Bess may say she is ready to die for her cause, but her evident delight at seeing her mother for the first time since she was jailed suggests some reservations. Her mother, too, is evidently torn. She tells of weeping for hours at the news her daughter was returning. She flinches at a question about her thoughts when she learned Wafa planned to blow herself up. But asked how she would feel if her daughter were to launch a suicide attack again, the mother quickly switches to resolute. "Palestine needs sacrifice. Whoever fights for freedom needs to make sacrifices," she said.

That is not what is on Naser's mind. "I never felt any regret for what I did. But if you want to ask if I would do it again, I only want to live with my family in peace," he said.