The oldest Palestinian prisoner, who had been imprisoned for 17 years in an Israeli prison for arms smuggling, was released on Monday.
A spokesman for the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club told the media that 83-year-old Fawad Shobaki has been released from Ashkelon prison and Shobaki’s son Hazem confirmed that he is about to return home.
According to the report, as Fawad Shubaki arrived at the tomb of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Ramallah, who was a close associate of his, Palestinian officials rushed to meet the elderly man wrapped in a Palestinian keffiyeh.
On the occasion, every little child waved the Tehreek-e-Fateh flag, while women were seen proudly wearing T-shirts emblazoned with Fawad Shubaki’s youthful photos.
After praying at Yasser Arafat’s tomb, Fawad Shubaki said that we will follow the same path that Yasser Arafat guided us to follow, we will continue his resistance against oppression at any cost. Why not pay, when it comes to our country, our people and those who were martyred while walking on the straight path, our lives are in vain.
It should be noted that Fawad Shubaki, a senior member of Tehreek-e-Fath, was arrested by the Palestinian security forces in 2002 at the height of the second uprising.
They were trying to smuggle weapons from Iran to the coastal enclave of Gaza aboard the Crane A, which was seized by Israel in the Red Sea after the Israeli military claimed the ship was loaded with 50 tons of weapons. They were then held by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank city of Jericho under American and British surveillance.
In 2006, Israeli forces stormed the prison and Fawad Shubaki was taken to Israel.
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