The Hamas Movement has congratulated the second longest-serving Palestinian prisoner Maher Younis his family and the Palestinian people on his release after four decades he spent in Israeli jails.
“During his detention which is one of the longest years of captivity prisoner Maher embodied a story of heroism steadfastness and challenge that every Palestinian and free person in this world are proud of. With his strong will he defeated the Zionist jailer and embraced freedom in his homeland” Hamas said in a statement on Thursday.
Hamas affirmed that it would proudly remain loyal to the sacrifices and acts of heroism that were made by the Palestinian prisoners and would work with might and main to extract their freedom.
Maher 66 was released from Eshel prison near Beersheba in southern Israel on Thursday morning.
He was arrested in 1983 and convicted alongside his cousin Karim Younis in Israeli courts of killing an Israeli soldier in Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in 1980. Karim released two weeks ago was the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner having been arrested earlier than Maher.
Maher and Karim were originally sentenced to death by hanging. Their sentence was changed to life in prison which was then commuted to 40 years in 2011.
The cousins are from the Palestinian village of Ara in Israel (1948 occupied Palestine) where large crowds of relatives and friends greeted Maher on Thursday.
Dozens of Israeli police who had warned people in Ara against holding any kind of celebration for days before his release surrounded the house on Thursday morning.
The citizens who welcomed Maher home were not able to carry any Palestinian flag because of new orders banning it in public which were issued by Itamar Ben-Gvir who was recently appointed security minister under a new right-wing Israeli government led by premier Benjamin Netanyahu.
