Longest-serving Palestinian prisoner Nael Barghouti has called on the international community to assume its responsibility vis-à-vis Palestinian ex-detainees re-sent to Israeli jails.
In statements quoted by the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) Barghouti said several Palestinian prisoners released as part of the Wafa al-Ahrar (Gilad Shalit) prisoner swap deal and re-arrested later by the Israeli occupation forces have been sent again to Israeli jails.
PPS urged the international community to immediately intervene to release 63 Palestinians detainees re-arrested by the Israeli forces following a political decision and re-sentenced to previous prison-terms.
PPS slammed the silence maintained by the international community as regards the ex-prisoners’ cause saying such an apathetic stance rather blocks all chances to strike a prisoner exchange deal with the Israeli occupation.
Barghouti a native of Ramallah’s northern town of Kober has spent 34 years out of a 37-year prison-term. He was released following the Wafa al-Ahrar swap deal and re-detained in 2014. In early 2017 the occupation authorities ruled that he be subjected to the previous term: life-sentence and 18 years in jail.
At the same time PPS raised alarm bells over the deteriorating health condition of 74-year-old Palestinian detainee Youssef Abu al-Kheir held in Gilboa lock-up.
PPS said Abu al-Kheir has been enduring life-threatening cardiovascular disorders and has gone through several strokes. Prior to his detention he underwent a heart surgery.
Abu al-Kheir was re-arrested by the Israeli occupation forces in May 2017 on his way back home from Greece. In 1969 he was arrested and sentenced to life in Israeli prisons before he was released in the 1985 swap deal and deported to Libya. Sometime later he moved to Greece. An Israeli court ruled for resuming his previous sentence after it rebuffed the detainee’s appeals for a fair trial.
