PA officials celebrate the life of a prisoner who planned the kidnapping and killing of an Israeli soldier

Text and images posted on the Facebook page of the PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs.

Text: “In cooperation with the Prisoners’ Club and the Murabitin (those carrying out Ribat, religious conflict/war to protect land claimed to be Islamic) Council in Jerusalem, the [PLO] Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs held a meeting of mourning in honor of the most veteran prisoner of the interior (i.e., Israel), fighter Sami Younes.
June 17, 2015
The Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs in cooperation with the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club and the Murabitin Council in Jerusalem held a meeting of mourning yesterday [June 16, 2015] in the evening, in honor of the most veteran prisoner of the interior (i.e., Israel), fighter Sami Younes ‘Abu Nader’, who died in his village, Arah, several days ago, after having served more than 28 years in the occupation’s prisons. The meeting of mourning in honor of the deceased was held yesterday evening [June 16, 2015] in the Al Zahra Towers hall from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. and the family of the deceased, Director of the Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs Issa Karake, Chairman of the Prisoners' Club Qadura Fares, [PA] Minister of Religious Affairs Sheikh Yusuf Ida'is and District Governor of Ramallah and El-Bireh Laila Ghannam were present...
Karake delivered an emotional eulogy in honor of the deceased, in which he spoke about the national and human virtues of the released fighter Younes.
He said: ‘He was an amiable person and was loved by all. He was a heroic fighter and an exceptional self-sacrificing fighter (Fida’i), who we in Palestine are proud of. We are having this meeting of mourning to honor the soul of Martyr (Shahid) Abu Nader.’”

Note: Sami Younes - an Israeli Arab who was serving a 40-year sentence for planning the kidnapping and killing of Israeli soldier Avraham Bromberg on Dec. 1, 1980. He instructed his relatives, Karim and Maher Younes, to carry out the kidnapping and commit the murder. He was originally sentenced to life in prison, but his sentence was shortened. In October 2011, Younes was released as part of the Shalit prisoner exchange deal brokered between the Israeli government and Hamas. In that deal, Israel released 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been held hostage by Hamas for more than 5 years.