The second-longest-held Palestinian prisoner, Maher Younis, was freed after 40 years in Israeli jails.
On Thursday before 7am (05:00 GMT), 65-year-old Maher, was freed from Eshel prison close to Beer Sabe’ (Beer Sheva) in southern Israel.
He was detained in 1983 and later found guilty in Israeli courts, along with his cousin Karim Younis, of murdering an Israeli soldier in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in Syria in 1980.
Karim, who was freed two weeks ago, had been imprisoned for a longer period of time than Maher.
The cousins hail from the Israeli Palestinian town of Ara, where Maher was welcomed on Thursday by throngs of family and friends.
After being freed, Maher went to his father’s grave, who had passed away in 2008. At home, where he was arrested at age 25, his mother welcomed him with flowers.
Before her son arrived, she told Al Jazeera journalists that she would not cry but instead would enjoy every second of the celebration.
Initially, Maher and Karim were given hanging death sentences. Their original sentence of death row was modified to 40 years in jail in 2011.
The residence was ringed by dozens of Israeli police on Thursday morning after they had previously advised residents of Ara not to celebrate his release in any way.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was just named Minister of National Security in a new right-wing administration headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, issued new instructions forbidding the raising of the Palestinian flag in public.
The Younis cousins are Palestinian Israeli citizens, unlike the great majority of Palestinian inmates in Israeli jails who are from the occupied West Bank.
Israeli ministers have pushed for tougher sanctions against Palestinians who have carried out acts that resulted in the deaths of Jewish Israelis in Israel and in occupied East Jerusalem, including the revocation of citizenship and residency.
It sparked a contentious discussion last week when a far-right official declared that she “prefers Jewish murderers over Arab murderers.”
Approximately 4,700 Palestinians, including 150 children and 835 individuals detained without charge or trial, are being kept in Israeli prisons.
