Israel deports Palestinian prisoners then bars families from visiting

For 24 years, every time Intisar visited her son Habis Bayyoud in an Israeli prison, he told her the same thing: “My freedom will be the day I can hug you outside these walls.”

The former Palestinian prisoner thought that day had finally come in October, when he was released and deported to Egypt under the Gaza ceasefire and prisoner-swap deal between Israel and Hamas.

In the West Bank village of al-Mazra’a al-Gharbiya near Ramallah, Intisar, 78, was overjoyed when she saw his name on the release list.

Even when an Israeli intelligence officer told her he would be sent to Egypt rather than home, she tried to console herself: “It doesn’t matter, as long as he’s free.

What she never expected was that the Israeli military would bar the entire family from leaving the occupied West Bank, leaving Habis alone in Egypt.

'This is revenge’: Israel deports Palestinian prisoners then bars families from visiting