RESTRICTION SUMMARY: Jabalia - 17 April 2023. Palestinian woman Khadra al-Burai, 80, holds pictures of her son, Nidal al-Burai, who has been imprisoned in Israeli prisons for 28 years, on the Palestinian Prisoner's Day at her home in Jabalia refugee camp, north of the Gaza Strip

0.1 SOUNDBITE (in Arabic) Khadra al-Burai

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Al-Burai says that the Israeli authorities prevented her from visiting her son six months ago.

Marking the Palestinian Prisoner’s Day today, prisoners’ advocacy groups said around 5000 freedom fighters are currently incarcerated in Israel, including 31 women and 160 minors, one of them is a girl, and more than 1000 are held in administrative detention without charge or trial, including six minors and two women.

The Commission for Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, Addameer Association for Prisoner Support and Human Rights, and Wadi Hilweh Information Center – Jerusalem, said in their joint report that an estimated 4900 freedom fighters are currently incarcerated in Israel.

They said 23 of the freedom fighters have been held since before the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the oldest is Mohammad al-Tous, held since 1985, in addition to 11 who were released in a prisoners’ exchange in 2011 and then re-arrested in 2014 and their sentences reinstated, most notably is Nael Barghouti, considered the longest serving freedom fighter with 43 years behind bars, 34 of them were continuous.

They also said some 400 freedom fighters have been in jail for over 20 years and that 554 are serving multiple life terms, one of them, Abdullah Barghouti, was sentenced to 67 life sentences.

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