Published yesterday (updated) 11/08/2009 18:14
Tulkarem – Ma’an – Following the end of his 25-year prison sentence, Israel released 50-year-old Muhammad Mansour Hamdan from Israeli custody on Tuesday.
First detained in 1979, Hamdan was released after three years in Israeli prison, then arrested again in 1985 and sentenced to 25 years. During that time the became a member of the Hamas party. His years in detention also saw his brother killed by Israeli forces during the second Intifadah, and his father then mother pass away in 1994 and 2001. He was not permitted to attend either funeral.
Hamdan is from the West bank town of Bal’a north of Tulkarem.
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| After 25 years the longest-serving Tulkarem resident is released from Israeli prison |  |  |
| 12.08.09 - 09:46 | |
| Tulkarem / PNN - At 25 years spent in Israeli prisons, Mohammad Mansour was the longest term detainee from Tulkarem. Political prisoners were all supposed to be released by the Israelis at Oslo, but that did not happen for many. Now 50 years old, the man from Balaa Village outside of Tulkarem City is home after having spent most of his adult life inside Israeli prisons. He was met by family members and hundreds of well-wishers yesterday at Nablus’ Salem Checkpoint. Palestinian officials and the media were also on hand. His brother Ahmed Mansour is the mayor of Balaa. He said that the occupying Israeli authorities blocked the release of Mohammad for several hours as hundreds of citizens waited at the checkpoint to greet him. For over four hours family members, and the others who had gathered, stood under the blazing sun. When Mansour finally was released, Fouad Khafash, Director of the Center for Prisoner Studies issued a statementn of congratulations. Mansour was arrested as a young man in 1985 and was sentenced by an Israeli military court to 25 years in prison, which he spent in full. Before that arrest, Israeli forces had taken him in 1979 and issued a sentence of three years. For 27 years total in Israeli prisons, Mansour studied for a BA from Birzeit University. He also wrote a book on the “American war on Iraq.” While Mansour was imprisoned his brother Ibrahim was killed during the first Intifada in 1988, and then his father died in 1994 and his mother in 2001. He was unable to say goodbye, attend their funerals, or know them much at all. The occupying authorities had prevented their visits to him for “security reasons”. |
