On Thursday, the Israeli occupation authorities released Hassan Yousef, a prominent leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” in the occupied West Bank, after administrative detention (without trial) that lasted 9 months.
Yousef, 63, was released from the Israeli Ofer Prison, west of Ramallah.
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In an exclusive interview immediately after his release, Yousef called, “the human rights institutions, and the whole world, to stand by their responsibilities towards Palestinian detainees in general, and administrators in particular.”
“Israel violates international law, and arrests Palestinians without trial and without right,” he said.
Yousef described administrative detention as a “crime and immoral”.
Administrative detention is a decision of detention without trial, and its period ranges from one to 6 months and is subject to extension.
Yousef continued, “I left behind me prisoners who yearn for freedom, and the Palestinian leadership and the factions are required to assume their responsibilities to release them.”
And about being repeatedly arrested by Israel, he said, “The occupation seeks to break our will, but it has failed and will not succeed.”
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Yousef was arrested on October 2, 2020, from his home in the town of Beitunia, west of Ramallah, about two months after his release from Israeli prisons.
Yousef spent nearly 21 years in the occupation prisons on intermittent periods, most of them in administrative detention.
