JERUSALEM, Thursday, December 31, 2020 (WAFA) – A Palestinian from East Jerusalem who was detained by Israel yesterday as he walked out of prison upon completion of his sentence was today freed and reunited with his family.

Malik Bukeirat, 41, was walking out of the Naqab prison in the south of Israel yesterday after completing his 19-year prison sentence, was detained by the Israeli occupation authorities and taken for interrogation at the Russian Compound detention center in West Jerusalem.

His family, which was waiting for him outside the prison to take him home, was denied the right to hold him or shake his hands. Instead, his father, Najeh Bukeirat, an official with the Islamic Waqf department in Jerusalem, was also detained and his family home in Sur Baher neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem was raided, thoroughly searched and ransacked.

The Bukeirat family said yesterday that Malik and his father were detained and their home ransacked to prevent the family from celebrating the release of their son after 19 years in prison.

When Malik was detained for resisting the Israeli occupation on December 31, 2001, his, wife, whom he married only a few months before, was pregnant with their daughter, Lina.

M.K.