Palestinian Prisoner Ayman Sharawna Freed, Arrives in Gaza Strip

Palestinian prisoner Ayman Sharawna arrived in the Gaza Strip on Sunday evening after signing a deportation deal to end an 8-month long hunger strike in Zionist jail.

Sharawna was given a hero’s welcome in Gaza.

Sharawna signed an agreement to be deported to Gaza for the next 10 years, bringing an end to a hunger strike he launched on July 1, said Qadura Fares, head of the Palestinian Prisoners Society.

The undersecretary of the PA Ministry of Detainee Affairs, Ziad Abu Ein, told Ma’an the agreement was signed without notifying the ministry. He said Israeli authorities were pressuring Samer Issawi, who has been on hunger strike for 228 days, to make a similar deal.

At the same night, Israeli occupation forces arrested Shrawna’s brother.

Earlier Sunday, the Minister of Detainee Affairs Issa Qaraqe said the Palestinian Authority rejected the deportation of prisoners as political blackmail.

Sharawna, 36, is from the southern West Bank city of Al-Khalil, he is married and has nine children.

He was released in the Oct. 2011 prisoner swap deal between the Israeli occupation and Hamas but was rearrested in Jan. 2012 for “violating the terms of his release.”

Israeli authorities refused to reveal how Sharawna violated his release terms, even to his lawyers, and he was jailed without charge or trial.