Photos: Released detainees celebrate new freedom with supporters in Gaza Strip

2nd November 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Five former Palestinian detainees freed overnight Wednesday in the Gaza Strip have received a resounding welcome.

Their families have erected celebration tents outside each of their homes to receive supporters and delegations.

On Thursday afternoon, an overflowing bus carried several dozen well-wishers between them, from farmlands outside Khan Younis to the Shati (“Beach”) refugee camp on the coast of Gaza City.

Detainees’ families and other participants in a weekly protest, held on Mondays at Gaza’s International Committee of the Red Cross office to support Palestinian prisoners, joined the trip.

Hilmi Hamad Obeid al-Amawi, one of the freed detainees, told supporters he hoped the release would “stress the need for the prisoners’ issue to be given greater priority at all levels, locally, regionally and internationally.”

In a statement, the Hussam Association, a Gaza-based society of current and former detainees which organized the tour, said “that the joy of the Palestinian people will be complete only with the freedom of all prisoners, led by patients, children, women and administrative detainees.”