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.
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“All seven of us siblings, my mother and our children, tried to travel,” Jamal Bayyoud, Habis’ brother, told Middle East Eye.
“Everyone of us was turned back.”
Before Habis’s release, no member of the family had ever been barred from travelling.
“This is revenge against the prisoners and their families,” Jamal said.
“Imagine spending 24 years in prison, only to find no one from your family allowed to reach you.”
Jamal, 39, postponed marriage for years, convinced his older brother would never serve out his full sentence.
He and Habis’s twin had promised they would all marry on the day of his release.
He has not seen his brother for 24 years.
‘Whenever he asks my mother, ‘What did you cook today?’ he tears up’
– Jamal Bayyoud, freed prisoner’s brother
Even during Jamal’s own repeated arrests, he was denied the legally permitted right to visit Habis.
“In my last arrest, an Israeli officer offered me one hour with him in exchange for five extra months in prison. I agreed, but they then reneged.”
Cut off from his family, Habis now finds solace among the relatives of other freed prisoners who have managed to reach Egypt.
His mother sends messages through them: “Embrace him on my behalf.”
The family stays in constant contact online, though even that is painful.
“Whenever he asks my mother, ‘What did you cook today?’ he tears up,” Jamal said.
The family has appealed to a human rights organisation, but expectations are low.
“This is a political decision,” Jamal said. “There is no law preventing a freed prisoner from seeing his family. What’s happened to us is a crime.”
According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, dozens of other families are in the same situation, barred from travelling under new Israeli restrictions imposed after the mass deportations of released prisoners earlier this year.
Israel has deported 383 Palestinian prisoners under the latest deal, and the previous one in January, but only around 10 percent of their families have been able to reach them, the organisation’s spokesperson Abdullah al-Zaghari told MEE.
Punitive measure
According to al-Zaghari, the organisation has approached international bodies to pressure Israel to lift the bans, but “nothing has changed on the ground”.
The travel bans, he added, are “a continuation of Israel’s assault on prisoners”.
Many affected families had never faced travel restrictions before their sons’ release – evidence, al-Zaghari said, that the measures are punitive and political.
Even families who managed to see their sons upon release, because they were already abroad, later found themselves banned the moment they returned to the West Bank.
Among those barred is the mother of Basem al-Khandaqji, imprisoned since 2004 and freed in the latest exchange. When his name was published, the family rushed to travel.
But at the Israeli-controlled section of the West Bank–Jordan crossing, they were stopped by Israeli officers.
‘There is no logic in preventing a mother from seeing her son’
– sister of released prisoner Basem al-Khandaqji
Only his youngest sister, who holds Jordanian citizenship, was allowed through.
“There is no logic in preventing a mother from seeing her son,” his older sister Amani said.
“She dreamed of this moment for years, and now she sees him only on a phone screen.”
Basem’s mother had always believed he would be freed despite multiple life sentences.
Each year, she prepared akkoub – a seasonal wild plant cooked with yoghurt and beloved in their hometown of Nablus – so it would be ready for him even out of season.
When she tried to travel, she carried with her the news of her recovery from cancer – an illness her son never knew she had.
‘Security reasons’
The travel bans were imposed during January’s prisoner exchange and continued with the second round in October.
Similar restrictions apply to the family of Nael al-Barghouthi from Kobar near Ramallah, who was released in January.
Barghouthi, 68, was deported to Egypt and later settled in Turkey alone.
His wife, Iman Nafi’, and all other relatives have been barred from leaving the West Bank.
Nafi’ tried to travel the day before his release but was turned back at the crossing.
‘They deny him even one family member beside him in exile’
– Iman Nafi’, freed prisoner’s wife
She appealed to the court but was rejected, receiving the same vague justification: “Security reasons.”
To Nafi’, the motive is obvious: to prevent prisoners from reuniting with their families and to deepen the punishment of exile.
“Israel denied Nael the right to remain in his homeland by deporting him,” she told MEE.
“They now deny him even one family member beside him in exile.”
Barghouthi spent 45 years in Israeli custody, including 34 consecutive years, making him the world’s longest-serving political prisoner, according to the 2009 Guinness World Records.
He was freed in the 2011 Hamas-Israel prisoner swap but was re-arrested in 2014, in violation of that agreement.
During his brief three years of freedom, he married Nafi’ and spent his time tending his land in Kober.
‘Living alone’
Nafi’ tries to bridge the distance through daily video calls – cooking together, sharing sunrise views from Kobar and Istanbul, and keeping track of medication times.
“But none of it replaces the fear,” she said. “He’s 68, living alone. Anything could happen.”
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Similar fears haunt the family of 72-year-old Abdel-Rahman Salah from Jenin, who was released earlier this year.
He was transferred from Ramleh prison clinic to Egypt by ambulance and taken straight to the hospital, where he spent months recovering from a brain haemorrhage caused by assault from guards in prison.
His vital functions, including memory and vision, have been affected after being subjected to abuse in prison.
His eldest daughter, Rasha Salah, said that despite the family appealing to numerous human rights organisations, Israel has not granted any of his seven children or his wife, now over 60, permission to travel and care for him.
Rasha, 41, said he now lives in a Cairo flat under constant medical supervision, tended by fellow released prisoners.
He requires help with even the smallest tasks, from answering the phone and moving around the flat to using the toilet.
“Our greatest fear is that he will suffer complications and die abroad with none of us beside him,” she told MEE. “Everything about his condition tells us he is in extreme danger.”
Still, Nafi’ remains hopeful and convinced the situation is temporary.
“I will petition the courts for his return to Kober, not for my right to travel,” she said of her husband, Barghouti.
“There is no justification for his deportation.”
