KHALIDA Jarrar, a senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is free!
She was greeted by a cheering crowd after she was released from an Israeli jail, in Nablus, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank yesterday morning.
Khalida Jarrar was held without trial for 20 months under the practice of administrative detention.
Jarrar, a 56-year-old member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, was released near the Salem military checkpoint, west of the northern occupied West Bank city of Jenin.
Her lawyer said that he and Jarrar’s family had been told in advance that the administrative detention would not be renewed against the Palestinian lawmaker unless significant new information was received.
Jarrar, a staunch advocate of Palestinian prisoners’ rights, said after her release that she would continue to campaign for the release of all Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons and detention centres.
On October 25 last year Israeli officials extended the detention without trial of Jarrar for the fourth time in a row.
The Palestinian lawmaker has been jailed multiple times.
She was last arrested in July 2017, when a large number of Israeli troops raided her home in the central occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, located 10 kilometres north of Jerusalem al-Quds. Her husband, Ghassan, said Israeli forces also seized her computers during the raid.
According to reports, a total of 13 Palestinian lawmakers are currently held in Israeli detention facilities without any trial under the so-called administrative detention, which is a policy according to which Palestinian inmates are kept in Israeli detention facilities without trial or charge.
Some Palestinian prisoners have been held in administrative detention for up to 11 years.
Israel currently holds 495 Palestinian prisoners in administrative detention.
