RAMALLAH, After entering his 30th year behind Israeli bars, Palestinian freedom fighter Abdul Jawad Shamasneh, 59, has 17 grandchildren whom he was not able to see, today said the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS).
Shamasneh, from the Jerusalem-area town of Qatanna, was arrested along with his brother by the Israeli army in 1993. Both underwent rigorous interrogation for 50 days before he was sentenced to four life terms plus 20 years for his resistance of the Israeli occupation.
Shamasneh should have been released from prison in 2014 in a US-brokered deal for the release of all Palestinian freedom fighters incarcerated in Israel since before the signing of the Oslo Accords between the Palestinians and Israel in 1993.
However, after releasing three batches of prisoners out of four, Israel reneged on releasing the fourth batch, which included, along with Shamasneh, the remaining long-term prisoners totaling 25, most of them from Jerusalem or inside Israel.
Shamasneh is married and has seven children, the youngest was not yet born when he was arrested. He has 17 grandchildren, whom he was not able to see, and his parents, due to their old age, were not able to visit him and his brother for years. His wife was also denied the right to visit him for five straight years.
Source: Palestine News & Info Agency