Hebron -
After waiting for more than 8 hours at the end of a 20-year detention, the Palestinian prisoner, Munir Al-Rajabi, arrived in Hebron, in the south of the West Bank, on Sunday evening, far from his city, Haifa, which he loved, lived in, and carried its identity.
Mounir found a morale boost when he was received by his fans, friends and members of his extended clan in Hebron, even though he seemed exhausted and tired of the long hours of transportation and waiting.
In the midst of the crowd, journalists try to seize the time to meet Mounir, and ask him about his suffering and the decision to deport him.
Al-Jazeera Net witnessed the first moments of his arrival in an event hall designated by his family to receive well-wishers, and spoke to him in haste about his fate after his removal from his place of residence and the conditions and fears of the prisoners behind him.
The release of the prisoner, Munir Al-Rajabi, after his 20-year imprisonment in the occupation prisons.
pic.twitter.com/OOclqA6VEU
Quds News Network (@qudsn) March 5, 2023
Distraction and banishment
Al-Rajabi says that he left the Negev prison in the far south at about 11 am, but he was rearrested again upon his arrival at the crossing separating the southern West Bank and Israel, south of the town of Al-Dhahiriya, to be transferred to the investigation again in an Israeli army camp south of Hebron, and there the intelligence officer gave him threatening and intimidating phrases. He practiced "incitement," as he put it.
The deported prisoner added that what happened to him had previously happened to other prisoners who had spent long years in prison "with the aim of spoiling their happiness and the joy of their future and their families, as if the long years of imprisonment were not enough to abuse and pressure the prisoners."
Al-Rajabi, 50, is unmarried and holds Israeli citizenship. His family is divided between the cities of Jerusalem and Hebron, but until his arrest in 2003 he was a resident of Haifa, on the Palestinian coast.
Regarding his deportation to the West Bank, Al-Rajabi says that the target is "all the Palestinians inside, especially Jerusalem, because Israeli law includes all of them," adding that "there are hundreds of prisoners who are also threatened with deportation."
He adds that all of Palestine is his homeland and he will try to live with the new situation.
"With my adherence to all my rights, we will not give up our land, our identity, our homeland, and live in freedom and dignity, and we will not surrender to the policies of the occupation."
He stated that he would move as legally as possible to try to return to Haifa.
Prisoner Al-Rajabi embraces freedom after 20 years spent in Israeli occupation prisons (Al-Jazeera)
The most dangerous thing that prisoners are exposed to
Al-Rajabi describes the current stage inside the prisons as "the most dangerous for the prisoners in terms of the pressure of the occupation and in terms of the impact of the ongoing Palestinian division since 2007."
He continued, "The prisoners are on the verge of going on strike during the month of Ramadan, but it alone is not enough, and they need influential positions away from slogans, as the prisoners have nothing but God and then their people."
Al-Rajabi indicates that the prisoners entered into a disobedience against the prison administrations 20 days ago, and announced that they would go on an open hunger strike with the advent of the month of Ramadan to demand an end to the Israeli pressure and measures against them.
In a statement issued on Sunday bearing the number "4", the "Supreme National Emergency Committee of the National Captive Movement" said that the prisoners' movement came "to confront the aggression of the Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir and his tools against us, who fight us with our bread and water, and we will continue our struggle until the occupier is forced to stop his aggression or our near liberation."
For his part, Hajj Adnan Al-Rajabi, the uncle of the released prisoner, told Al-Jazeera Net that Munir "was received a massive reception among his relatives and loved ones in the city of Hebron, despite attempts to upset him and us."
He added that the priority now is to overcome the prison stage, coexist with society, and get to know people in preparation for marriage and building a new family.
Receiving the prisoner Munir Al-Rajabi in the city of Hebron after 20 years of captivity in the occupation prisons pic.twitter.com/HHQKEjGWXt
- Media of the prisoners (@AsraMediia) March 5, 2023
First deportation after the law
Al-Rajabi is the first Palestinian from the 48 territories to be deported and his citizenship revoked after the Israeli Knesset on February 15 finally approved a law allowing the punishment of prisoners of Jerusalem and the interior by revoking citizenship and deportation.
The law includes - according to a statement published by the Knesset on its website at the time - "an Israeli citizen or resident who was convicted of committing a violation that constitutes breach of trust towards the State of Israel and imposed an actual prison sentence on him because of it, and it has been proven that the Palestinian Authority pays him allowances or wages for doing so."
According to the Knesset statement, "It will be possible to revoke his citizenship or his permanent residence permit according to need, and thus deport him to the territories of the Palestinian Authority or to the Gaza Strip."
Days after the law was issued, on February 28, the Palestinian Prisoners Club reported that the occupation had decided to deport the prisoner, Munir al-Rajabi, from his place of residence in Haifa.
This came about 4 years after his Israeli identity was withdrawn from him in 2019, in a punishment that included other Palestinians, including lawyer Salah Al-Hamouri, whose identity was withdrawn and deported to France last December.
Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Jerusalem and the interior, out of more than 4,700 detainees in Israeli prisons, are threatened with deportation and the withdrawal of identity or citizenship.
The head of the Committee for the Families of Jerusalemite Prisoners and Detainees, Amjad Abu Asab, told Al-Jazeera Net that the number of Jerusalem prisoners currently stands at 420, adding that the criteria for withdrawing the Jerusalemite identity from the prisoners and the criteria for deportation are "not completely clear now."