Prisoner Who Held One of Longest Hunger Strikes Released

Israel released on Monday Palestinian prisoner Samer Issawi, who had staged a nearly 9-month hunger strike in protest over his incarceration.

The release comes as a result of deal made in April  between Issawi and Israel in which Issawi would end his near record hunger strike in exchange for 8 additional months in detention, for a total of 17 months, after which he would get a suspended sentence.

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Israel reportedly “offered to deport” Jerusalem-born Issawi to a European or other UN nation in April, to which he said, “I do not accept to be deported out of my homeland.”

As Agence France-Presse reports,

He was re-arrested in July 2012, Jerusalem Post reports, “for violating the terms of his release by leaving the Jerusalem area and shortly thereafter began his hunger strike.”

Ahram Online reports that his July arrest was made under Israel’s administrative detention law.