The longest-serving Palestinian prisoner in Israel for 40 years said his release felt like a “military operation”.
Karim Younis, from the city of Ara in northern Israel, was detained on January 6, 1983 and sentenced to life in prison for membership in the Fatah movement. The sentence was later reduced to 40 years in prison.
Recalling the day he was released from prison, Younis said it was like a “military operation”.
“The Israeli prison authorities turned the process of my release into something like a military operation,” he said in an exclusive interview with Anadolu news agency.
“It was almost before dawn. I was taken away, and I expected that I would be handed over to the district police to be released from the police station. In a strange and reprehensible way they took me in a car. I would have pulled out onto a side road and switched as if we were participating in a military operation,” Younis said.
“I was dropped off somewhere, and the officer handed me my things, gave me a bus card, and pointed to the bus stop with his hand and said: “Go home alone,” he recalled.
Younis said he moved to a bus station where he met several Palestinian workers.
“I asked one of them for his cell phone to call my family. When they heard my name, they all gathered around me and tried to feed and drink me, but I called my family and half an hour later they came to the station to pick me up,” he said.
Another world
After his release, thousands of Palestinians flocked to Younis’s home to shake his hand.
Younis, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner in Israeli prisons, was imprisoned when he was 26 years old.
After four decades behind bars, he got out of jail and found the world had changed.
“It seems strange and hard to describe. When you enter a world that is completely different from the world you left, you get a very strange feeling,” he said.
“My feeling is difficult to describe in words, but it is a human feeling. It is new for a person to feel his freedom and humanity after very long years of imprisonment.
Younis noted that his family lined up to shake hands with him, but he found a whole generation of relatives whom he had not met before, although he knew them from photographs, since only first-degree relatives were allowed to see him in prison.
“extremist government”
Israeli law, which is being prepared by the Knesset, allows the deportation of detained or released prisoners who received financial assistance from the Palestinian Authority and the deprivation of their citizenship.
“The campaign of incitement started even before I got out of prison and they tried more than once to pass a law to expel anyone who works against the Israelis,” Younis said.
Commenting on the new government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Younis said: “The new cabinet is perhaps the most extremist and fascist in Israel’s history.”
“We say that this is the most extremist government in Israel because of these extremists who have become ministers,” Younis said.
“The clearest evidence of this is the appointment of Itamar Ben-Gvir as Minister of National Security, which means that he is also in charge of the prison service,” he added.
As for Ben-Gvir, Younis said he used to threaten prisoners “to strip them of their rights and send them back to the 1970s.”
“Our consolation is that our prisoners today are united under one roof and one banner, which is the highest leadership of the prisoners, to face this challenge and stand against Ben Gvir.”
“Our prisoners will fight to protect not only their achievements, but also their dignity and their existence. For them, this will be a matter of life or death.”
As for his future, Younis said his main dream is to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.
“I will do my duty to the (Palestinian) cause and I am ready to continue the fight because there is no retirement in the resistance,” he added.
* Letter from Mahmoud Barakat
