Duqqah, Walīd

Walid Nimer As'aad Daqqa (Arabic: وليد نمر أسعد دقّة; 18 July 1961 – 7 April 2024) was a Palestinian prisoner and novelist who was imprisoned for 38 years after he was convicted of commanding a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)-affiliated group that abducted and killed an Israeli soldier. He was not convicted of the murder, but of commanding the group, a charge he rejected. Daqqa was the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner in Israeli jails. Daqqa, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was born in Baqa al-Gharbiyye in 1961. In 1984, a group of Arab Israelis affiliated with the PFLP abducted and killed an Israeli soldier. Daqqa was arrested two years later, charged with commanding the responsible group. His conviction by an Israeli military court was based on old British emergency regulations. He received a life sentence without parole, but his sentence was later reduced to 37 years. During his imprisonment, he got married in 1999, and had a child in 2020 when his sperm was smuggled. Daqqa also completed both a bachelor's and master's degree in political science, and had been working on his doctorate. He authored several prison literature works, including a children's novel in 2018 that narrates the story of a boy, who uses magical olive oil from the Israeli-occupied West Bank to visit his imprisoned father. In 2021, Daqqa was diagnosed with cancer, prompting calls for his release upon completion of his original sentence in 2023, but he had received a further two-year sentence in 2018 for smuggling mobile phones to prisoners. Amnesty International reported that Daqqa's lawyer who had visited him a few weeks before his death said that Daqqa had lost much weight and was subjected to torture. After Daqqa's death on 9 April 2024, Israeli police forcefully dispersed visitors who attended his funeral.