Days of Palestine – Ramallah

Iyad Ali Qawasmi, a Palestinian political prisoner serving a life sentence in Israeli prisons, completes on Sunday 18 years behind Israeli prison bars, according to prisoner advocacy groups.

Qawasmi, who comes from the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, was arrested on this day in 2004 and was sentenced to life in prison for his activism in the resistance to the Israeli occupation force (IOF).

Like many Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, Qawasmi was held in solitary confinement and denied family visitation several times by the IOF as a punishment against him and his entire family.

At least 4,600 Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons, including about 500 administrative prisoners, according to groups concerned with the affairs of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.