July 1 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The head of the Palestinian Authority Commission for Prisoner Affairs, Qadri Abu Bakr, died this Saturday in a traffic accident in the northern West Bank.
The vehicle in which he was traveling crashed, as confirmed by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, on highway 505 near the city of Jammain, in what could initially be a collision with another vehicle.
A married couple has also died as a result of the incident, according to the Palestinian agency.
Abu Bakr, 70, was a member of the Palestinian government party, Al Fatah, and had held the position since 2018. Born in the village of Biddya, he spent 17 years in an Israeli prison and was expelled to Iraq before returning in 1996. then after the Oslo agreements between Israel and the PLO, which led to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority.
Abu Bakr was returning from an event in the West Bank city of Ramallah on the occasion of the celebration of the Eid Al Adha festival in which the children of Palestinian prisoners participated along with the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmud Abbas.
The president has quickly released a statement of condolences in which he praises the deceased “as a freedom fighter who has spent his life defending Palestine, its cause, its people and its independent national decision.”
The deceased was one of the most responsible in the field of the situation of Palestinian prisoners in Israel, around 5,000, including women and children, and many with illnesses or in a situation of administrative detention, which allows the Israeli authorities holding terrorist suspects in jail without charge or trial for renewable intervals that typically range from three to six months, effectively implying their indefinite detention without trial.
“Abu Bakr has always remained at the forefront, defending the causes of his country and his people in all areas of national action and struggle, as well as in the international arena, since the early days of the Palestinian national movement,” Abbas added.
