Israel frees Palestinian Mahmoud Jabarin after 30 years of imprisonment

Palestinian political prisoner Mahmoud Jabarin was released on Sunday after spending decades in Israeli prisons.

Jabarin, 55, returned home to Umm al-Fahm city, northwest of occupied Jenin after being imprisoned for 30 years by Israel.

Hundreds of people gathered to greet Jabarin on the morning of his release and celebrate his homecoming.

Jabarin, an affiliate with the Fatah movement at the time of his imprisonment, was one of 28 Palestinians who were imprisoned by Israeli authorities prior to the signing of the Oslo Accords, a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation which many believe has “failed”.

He was detained on October 8 1988 and was initially sentenced to a lifetime in prison for killing a man suspected of being a collaborator with Israeli security forces. The Israeli Supreme Court later reduced his sentence to 30 years after another court hearing.

Last week Israel freed a French-Palestinian political prisoner held without charge on suspicions that he was linked to the Palestinian leftist movement Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Salah Hamouri, 33, was freed at Jerusalem police headquarters last Sunday after being brought from his cell in a prison in southern Israel's Negev desert.

Attorney Mahmud Hassan said Hamouri was forbidden to take part in demonstrations, protests or celebrations of his release for a period of 30 days and required to post a bond of 3,000 shekels ($825, 710 euros).

He was arrested at his home in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem on August 23, 2017 and subsequently interned under what Israel calls administrative detention, which allows detention without trial for renewable six-month periods.

Neither suspects nor their lawyers are informed of the reasons for arrests and Israel's Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency made no immediate comment.

"Freedom is an indescribable feeling," Hamouri said after his release, while saying he felt France had not done enough to push for it.

"The detention system in Israeli prisons is often hard. The Israelis try everything to imprison our will, to isolate us from our society and our family."