Palestinian freedom fighter and prisoner Jihad al-Obeidi was released after serving his full sentence of 25 years in Israeli prisons on January 20, 2013; his sentence was spent shuffled between various occupation prisons, including the Moskobiya, Bir Saba, Hasharon, Eshel and Ramla. His family, originally displaced from Lifta in 1948, is preparing to welcome him in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of Jerusalem.
Waed Ayyash, his niece, said that the family’s joy at his return cannot be expressed after 25 years of absence, and that the family is planning to welcome him with flags, banners and a large reception tent. She recalled her own, and her family’s, experience traveling to visit her uncle in many Israeli prisons, saying they witnessed only a small portion of his suffering and that of his fellow prisoners.
Jihad Obeidi is the uncle of the martyr Milad Said Ayyash, who was 17 when he was killed on May 14, 2011 by a settler’s gun as settlers and the occupationa army attacked a Palestinian youth protest in Silwan commemorating the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba and calling for the right of return.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network extends its warmest congratulations to Jihad Obeidi and his family and awaits the day when all Palestinian prisoners – and the Palestinian people – will be free of the occupation and its jails.
Video of his release celebration:
