TUBAS, West Bank: Jamal Abu Muhsin was a first-year Palestinian university student when he was convicted of stabbing a 76-year-old Israeli man to death in 1991, in retaliation for the killings of five Palestinian stone-throwers by Israeli soldiers.

Recently released from prison, he’s now beginning a new chapter of his life thanks to a pair of university degrees — all earned behind bars.

Abu Muhsin is among hundreds of Palestinians who have spent their time in Israeli prison pursuing higher education — a program that was supported by the Israeli prison system for two decades until it was cut in 2011 as part of a series of sanctions against prisoners. Since then, prisoners secretly have organized their own courses, with backing from universities in the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian officials say.

Uprising leader Marwan Barghouti, the most famous Palestinian prisoner, teaches a master’s degree course in Israel Studies, and Abu Muhsin was one of Barghouti’s students.

Abu Muhsin said studying helped him get through 23 years behind bars.

“When I found myself in jail for life, I was faced with two options: either I make meaning for my life or waste my life and my mind behind bars,” said Abu Muhsin, 42, speaking at his home Tubas, West Bank.

He chose to study history, then languages and writing and finally sciences and economics before earning a bachelor’s degree in political science via long-distance learning at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He later added a master’s degree from the Palestinian Al-Quds University.

“I’ve studied materials about the Zionist movement from a Zionist perspective, but I found no discrimination against us as students. I would write papers to the university in which I would criticize the Zionist theory and they would accept my argument,” he said. “I wanted to understand everything in life and to make my long life in jail meaningful. Otherwise my soul would have died.”

Israel first began offering university courses to the prisoners in the early 1990s, following a 14-day hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners. Since Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in 1967, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been imprisoned for anti-Israeli actions, from stone-throwing to killings. Hundreds of the roughly 5,000 prisoners held by Israel today are believed to be pursuing degrees, according to prisoners’ rights activist.

The prisoners say they have found ways of earning degrees. Issa Karake, the Palestinian minister for prisoners affairs, said the inmates are now “secretly studying” in coordination with Palestinian universities in the West Bank and Gaza. Barghouti, the uprising leader, earned a doctorate from an Egyptian university in 2010, making him eligible to teach university-level courses in prison.