Beersheba: After nearly nine and a half years in detention, Israel released on Thursday Palestinian prisoner Ahmed Manasra, who was detained when he was just 13 years old.

According to Anadolu Agency, Manasra's lawyer, Khaled Zabarqa, described his client's time in Israeli prisons as filled with torment, pain, and hardships.

Zabarqa noted that Israeli prison authorities freed Manasra in an isolated area away from the prison to prevent his family from receiving him, leaving him alone. A passerby found Manasra in the Beersheba region in southern Israel and contacted his family, who later reunited with him. The lawyer suggested that the location of Manasra's release was an attempt to deny him a celebratory welcome.

Israel arrested Manasra on October 12, 2015, for allegedly planning to stab a settler in the Pisgat Ze'ev settlement north of Jerusalem. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison. His cousin, Hassan Manasra, who was with him at the time, was killed by police. Zabarqa criticized Israeli authorities for treating Manasra, who entered prison at 13 and emerged at 23, not as a child but with what he termed as pure racism.

Manasra's family waited outside Nafha Prison, but he was released elsewhere. Zabarqa stated that Israeli officials summoned Manasra's father, imposing restrictions on any celebratory welcome, barring public gatherings, or media interviews. They also called Manasra for questioning later at the Moskobiyya interrogation center in west Jerusalem for undisclosed reasons.

A leaked video from his 2015 interrogation showed a young Manasra crying and expressing uncertainty, as an Israeli investigator shouted and threatened him. Zabarqa concluded that despite enduring harsh conditions, the courts ignored Manasra's youth, effectively assassinating his childhood.