“I bear an important letter from prisoners in Israeli jails that the Palestinian national unity is the shortest way to uproot the occupation,” Kabaha said after his release.

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), 7,500 Palestinians, including 270 under the age of 18, are currently held in 10 prisons and 3 detention camps in Israel and in the West Bank. Three of them are in jail for more than 30 years and 315 for more than 15 years.

Around 9,000 Palestinians are detained every year by Israel for either armed resistance or acts of civil disobedience.

Om Osama, Kabaha’s wife, said that the “joy will only complete if all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are released.”

Kabaha was arrested on May 2007 and was sentenced to six-month administrative detention. Israeli authorities renewed the sentence as part of its efforts to keep him and dozens of Hamas officials as “bargaining chips” in order to trade them for abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Though Israel never said so officially, it was clear that this was retaliation for Shalit’s abduction in June 2006, and that the detainees were meant to serve as bargaining chips for his release. At the time, senior Israeli legal and defense officials said the arrests “spearheaded” efforts to get Shalit back.

When the detainees were indicted, the aim was to secure jail terms of seven to ten years. In practice, however, it turned out to be impossible to prove most of the detainees were directly involved in Hamas’ military activity. Thus they were generally charged only with lesser offenses, such as membership of an illegal organization, Hamas.

Kabaha has been arrested seven times by the Israeli army between 1989 and 2005. He spent nearly six years in different Israeli jails.

According to Hamas, he suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure but the Israeli prison authority refused to provide him treatment.