The plight of 37-year-old Israa Jaabis is bit painful; even though got released from the Israeli prison after eleven years she was not able to express the happiness and to lead a peaceful life with her reunited family. “Ashamed”, said Ms Jaabis expressing her inability to rejoice, since the whole Palestinians are wounded and engulfed in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
Israa Jaabis was convicted 11 years ago of detonating a gas cylinder in her car at a checkpoint on a highway leading from Ma”ale Adumim to Jerusalem, injuring an Israeli police officer. Since then, she was a prisoner under the custody of the Israeli forces and was released under the recent agreement of four-day humanitarian truce between Israel and Hamas. “I”m ashamed to talk about rejoicing when the whole of Palestine is wounded”, news agency AFP quoted Ms Jaabis. “They must release everyone”, she added.
It was on Wednesday Israel approved a four-day ceasefire agreement with the Hamas militant group in exchange of at least fifty hostages from Gaza. The Qatar brokered talks also led to the promise of the release of 150 Palestinians from the Israeli prisons, and Ms Jaabis was one among the released. She was in Israeli detention in the past eight years.
She was convicted from the checkpoint after the gas cylinder incident. Shin Bet, Israel”s internal security agency, claimed a traffic police officer observed Ms Jaabis driving in the bus lane while following closely behind a police vehicle, reported NDTV. According to Shin Bet, the police detected a suspicious vehicle by Ms Jaabis nearing a checkpoint on the route to Jerusalem and motioned for her to stop.
She then exclaimed Allahu Akbar (God is great) and said activated an explosive device in her vehicle. Shin Bet also claims that handwritten notes were recovered from her person that voiced support for “Palestinian martyrs”. She was then alleged car bombing and was taken along with the injured police officer to the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem Ein Kerem neighbourhood.
Meanwhile the Palestinian authorities dispute the ‘car bombing’ claim and explained that she was carrying household items in her car which included butane gas cylinders for kitchen purposes. As said by them a mechanical failure caused the car sparked. She was sentenced to jail in the same month and for the Palestinian community she became a symbol of resistance.