Ramallah / PNN – This morning the prisoner Khater was released after eight years.
He is from the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights and this release is part of a larger program to lessen the numbers at the northern Jelbua Prison.
The Center for Prisoners Studies said today that Khater had already been arrested by the occupying Israeli authorities for questions regarding national activities. The man, born in 1976, had been under house arrest and fined extensively.
Khater was accused by the Israelis in 2001 of providing aid for the armed resistance in the occupied West Bank.
Fouad Khafash, Director of the Center for Prisoners Studies, sent a note of congratulations on the occasion of release from Israeli prisons and said that he hoped for the release of the remaining Arab prisoners from the occupied Golan. There are currently seven that may be let go.
The United States has recently adopted a negotiation with the Israelis to end the occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights which began in 1967.
Khafash appealed to human rights lawyers and organizations to intensify their visits to the Palestinian Arab prisoners and meet their needs. He said, “We must be a bridge between them and their families.”
He added a request to those involved in the prisoner exchange for the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit to include Arab prisoners, not just Palestinian, in the list of those who may be able to go free. “We need to provide for all of those who gave years of their lives in the defense of Palestine.”
