Marking Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, around 5000 freedom fighters are still being held in Israeli jails

Marking the Palestinian Prisoner’s Day today, prisoners’ advocacy groups said around 5000 freedom fighters are currently imprisoned in Israeli jails, including 31 women and 160 minors, one of them is a girl, and more than 1000 are held in administrative detention without charge or trial, including six minors and two women.

The Commission for Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, Addameer Association for Prisoner Support and Human Rights, and Wadi Hilweh Information Center – Al-Quds, said in their joint report that an estimated 4900 freedom fighters are currently incarcerated in Israeli occupation jails, according to Wafa News Agency.

They said 23 of the freedom fighters have been held since before the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the oldest is Mohammad al-Tous, held since 1985, in addition to 11 who were released in a prisoners’ exchange in 2011 and then re-detained in 2014 and their sentences reinstated, most notably is Nael Barghouti, considered the longest serving freedom fighter with 43 years behind bars, 34 of them were continuous.

They also said some 400 freedom fighters have been in jail for over 20 years and that 554 are serving multiple life terms, one of them, Abdullah Barghouti, was sentenced to 67 life sentences.

In addition, the Israeli occupation authorities are still holding the bodies of 12 Palestinians who died while in prison, one of them held since 1980, and 700 prisoners are ill, including 24 suffering from various degrees of cancer, the most difficult case among them is that of Walid Daqqa, held for 37 years.

Several rallies were held yesterday in most West Bank and Gaza cities in support of the freedom fighters and to demand their freedom, mainly the old, the sick, the women, and the minors.

Hamda Mustafa